Modern Magic Quest

[Heaven Canceler]

Empathy's not very useful in a fight, though, and we want to be able to survive long enough to get more powerful. Well, actually, I guess it might be able to be used to detect where and when an attack is coming from, but precog can do that, too.

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It should, feeling another person't killing Intent should be much easier like this. It would probably develop into something like a Spider-sense if the other side is human sooner or later. And it does have the Advantage that we don't Need to actually see the other Person, only be near enough for the effect to work.

 

[Selias]

We are voting for the youngest option available to us when we vote for empathy you know. Meaning we will have time before we get into fights. :

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Considering that Useless101 didn't say anything about being young meaning that you get more time before fighting, I have to wonder where you got that from. Wishful thinking, perhaps?

 

[Carrnage]

(X) Empathy, sympathetic reactions.
(X) Nope, still a midget.


We shall be the queen bee of the school ahahahahaha

 

[nick012000]

[X] Precognition, the Path to Victory
-You ask your power how to accomplish a goal, and it gives you a list of steps guaranteed to accomplish it. Unfortunately, it doesn't give you any explanation of why or how those steps accomplish your goal; it simply gives you a list of actions you need to take, though the nature of the power is such that all those steps are physically possibly and intuitively understood (so that if it tells you to, say, make a particular sword strike, it doesn't give you technical jargon you don't understand).

[X] Nope, still a midget

 

[Selias]

[X] Precognition, the Path to Victory
-You ask your power how to accomplish a goal, and it gives you a list of steps guaranteed to accomplish it. Unfortunately, it doesn't give you any explanation of why or how those steps accomplish your goal; it simply gives you a list of actions you need to take, though the nature of the power is such that all those steps are physically possibly and intuitively understood (so that if it tells you to, say, make a particular sword strike, it doesn't give you technical jargon you don't understand).

[X] Nope, still a midget

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Dude, this is our STARTING spell. That's probably WAY too powerful.

 

[Vindictus]

The main issue I see in the 'Sympathetic magic? VOODOO FUCK YEAH!' thought pattern is, well, we're using sympathetic magic through ourselves.

We are the voodoo doll.

In order to make our enemy feel pain, we have to stab ourselves.

Which is entirely fine and dandy and all for a deliberate blood-knight murderfucker badass character, but I get the feeling that this is not quite what most of you have in mind.

 

[Fellgar]

The main issue I see in the 'Sympathetic magic? VOODOO FUCK YEAH!' thought pattern is, well, we're using sympathetic magic through ourselves.

We are the voodoo doll.

In order to make our enemy feel pain, we have to stab ourselves.

Which is entirely fine and dandy and all for a deliberate blood-knight murderfucker badass character, but I get the feeling that this is not quite what most of you have in mind.

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Dude, its a starter spell. Voodoo always starts off practicing using the practioner itself as the base then it moves on. : We are voting for theme's here people not starting powers. So I for one rather want us to have sympathetic magic as our theme. It has tons of possibilities and has not been done before in a quest unlike nearly every other option we have here.

 

[LightMage]

Just don't forget that the downside to mental path is that..
- The minds of others are exponentially harder to work with, making the main focus of this path the slowest in terms of expressing power externally.

So self buffs and mimicing others is easier than effecting them. Hmm I wonder if this means we can get the mimic actions part of a certain pair of Ninja Eyes early on?

 

[Pipeman]

Just don't forget that the downside to mental path is that..
- The minds of others are exponentially harder to work with, making the main focus of this path the slowest in terms of expressing power externally.

So self buffs and mimicing others is easier than effecting them. Hmm I wonder if this means we can get the mimic actions part of a certain pair of Ninja Eyes early on?

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This is basically my reasoining as well.
As fun as inflicting all kinds of nasty stuff on other people through sympathetic magic would be, the main goal for me is to get to the point where we can steal skills and stuff from other people.

 

[Vindictus]

That'd probably be the Analytical power, yeah, and that's my second choice beyond Point-Man write in.

The basic difference is that where Analysis overclocks a significant portion of the unconcious brain, Bullet-time overclocks the concious brain leading to a percieved temporal dilation. Otherwise, they're very similar mechanically IMO.

 

[Pipeman]

That'd probably be the Analytical power, yeah, and that's my second choice beyond Point-Man write in.

The basic difference is that where Analysis overclocks a significant portion of the unconcious brain, Bullet-time overclocks the concious brain leading to a percieved temporal dilation. Otherwise, they're very similar mechanically IMO.

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As far as I see it, Analysis may let us understand what the other guy is doing but we'll still lack the skill needed to properly copy anything.
Empathy on the other hand should basically just let us dip into the other guys skill, so we won't have to worry about that.
If the GM contradicts this though, I'd be willing to change my vote.

 

[Vindictus]

Eh?

Empathy, as I read it, mostly deals with chemical balances and emotions. I can see high-tiers reaching 'Aura of DOOM' and 'Power Word- Suicide', but I'm not sure how you get 'Steal skills' from it.

Compare to overclocking your brain, where you can literally make your brain just learn things better and/or give yourself more time for studying despite technically taking the same amount of time.

 

[Pipeman]

Eh?

Empathy, as I read it, mostly deals with chemical balances and emotions. I can see high-tiers reaching 'Aura of DOOM' and 'Power Word- Suicide', but I'm not sure how you get 'Steal skills' from it.

Compare to overclocking your brain, where you can literally make your brain just learn things better and/or give yourself more time for studying despite technically taking the same amount of time.

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Mainly because it's not simply "Empathy", but "Empathy, sympathetic reactions".
'Aura of DOOM' and 'Power Word- Suicide' are likely going to be incredibly difficult, since they not only require us to affect others, which we are bad at, but also require us to do this without feeling these things ourselves to be effective, which goes directly against the sympathetic bit of the powerset.

Instead our power should be far more suited towards making ourselves take on things from others.
At first we'd obviously be limited to feeling the feelings of others and therefor using our power as an information gathering tool, but as our power grows I'd assume it'll be possible to expand its scope to dip into directly beneficial stuff stuff like the proper mindset for a task at hand and ultimately even skills without having to bother acquiring either ourselves.

 

[Selias]

If we're talking about our high level possibilities...

Kiritsugu
Guldo (DBZ)
Homura
Orihime Inoue
The Doctor

Of course, if time manipulation leads to reality manipulation, we'd also get things like Q, Haruhi, etc.

 

[Pipeman]

Given the inherent difficulty in effecting anything that isn't ourselves, I kind of doubt we can cross over into reality manipulation.
In fact, I'm even doubtful on whether a full timestop is really possible.

 

[Selias]

Given the inherent difficulty in effecting anything that isn't ourselves, I kind of doubt we can cross over into reality manipulation.
In fact, I'm even doubtful on whether a full timestop is really possible.

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That might be a good point. What about Clairvoyance? It sounds like it might lead to Astral Projection, which would give us access to all kinds of cool powers.

 

[Pipeman]

That might be a good point. What about Clairvoyance? It sounds like it might lead to Astral Projection, which would give us access to all kinds of cool powers.

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Clairvoyance I have problems imagining high level powers for that aren't just scaled up low level ones.
Scrying most likely belongs to this powerset, magic sensing/tracking most likely as well and it might eventually even allow you to divine more abstract information like thoughts, weaknesses and stuff.

Offensive uses for ourselves I have a real difficulty seeing, though this obviously depends on how hard the limits we are under are to overcome.
As far as I can tell, affecting the minds of others is going to be hard and doing anything physical is going to be outright impossible.
Otherwise minor but long distance telekinesis could make us very dangerous on our own.
This way we'll likely have to stick to information gathering and making heavy use of allies.
If we can somewhat crossclass into telepathy we could easily become mission control, but even if that isn't viable we can still give them information beforehand, use mundane communication tools to keep their info up to date and possibly even work as a long range guidance system for the spells of others.

Edit:
Hm.
This powerset is actually starting to sound really fun to me.
Not quite sure if I want to switch over yet though.
Would anyone else be up for this?

 

[Redon]

I'm sticking to my empathy guns.

 

[Selias]

Clairvoyance I have problems imagining high level powers for that aren't just scaled up low level ones.
Scrying most likely belongs to this powerset, magic sensing/tracking most likely as well and it might eventually even allow you to divine more abstract information like thoughts, weaknesses and stuff.

Offensive uses for ourselves I have a real difficulty seeing, though this obviously depends on how hard the limits we are under are to overcome.
As far as I can tell, affecting the minds of others is going to be hard and doing anything physical is going to be outright impossible.
Otherwise minor but long distance telekinesis could make us very dangerous on our own.
This way we'll likely have to stick to ourselves to information gathering and using lots of allies.
If we can somewhat crossclass into telepathy we could easily become mission control, but even if that isn't viable we can still give them information beforehand, use mundane communication tools to keep updating info and possibly even work as a long range guidance system for the spells of others.

Edit:
Hm.
This powerset is actually starting to sound really fun to me.
Not quite sure if I want to switch over yet though.
Would anyone else be up for this?

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Well, like I said, Astral Projection is one scaled-up power, and projecting our soul would lead to tons of different soul-based powers, like possession, directly attacking someone's soul, and possibly making it so we can just body-jack, someone if we die. Plus, there's the other things you mentioned, like scrying for weaknesses, etc. Honestly, now I kind of want that.


(X) Clairvoyance, lying about echolocation.
(X) Nope, still a midget.

 

[useless101]

As the ability to see something other than rusty teeth returns, the edge of your vision catches a clawed finger moving to scrape against your forehead.

Something inside shifts, and a hazy feeling of drowsiness pervades everything. Some form of knockout ability?

No. This isn't anything he's doing, or at least it's only something he started. You're doing this. Pulling on something and picking it up. Making it yours.

There are other people in the house. Three of them.

Oh, it must be Mom, Dad, and Katie. Obviously they're still asleep. Not sure where they are though. Well, they're probably in their bedrooms, but you're just guessing with that. It's a reasonable thought, that is where they usually sleep, but whatever it is you're doing can't confirm it for you.

It's also pretty clear that the thing in front of you is barely interacting with whatever you're doing at all, and what little is coming through is twisted and warped.

"Yes," there's that parody of a smile again. "That ought to do well enough."

"Remember, you don't have to be good," It pats you on the head, the mimicry of a comforting gesture all the more wrong with the knowledge that this thing's mind isn't right, "but you do have to be quiet."

And then it's gone.

The relief from that is strong enough to cause a mental stumble, and the knowledge that your parents and older sister are sleeping right now fades.

A stray thought brings the feeling back, but this time you notice it draining something. Another few panicked thoughts switch it off again.

And then back on. Off again. On again. Off. On. Off. On.

This might be pretty cool if you were doing it on purpose. As it is, it's just upsetting.

An attempt to distract yourself results in another flicker, ending with it off as you examine the paper that shadow thing left on your bedstand.

It doesn't have any real names, nor addresses, only giving a title, a few words of description and general information on the areas they frequent.

---​

- The Berserker. Primary spell focus is Self-Modification. Violent conflict with the Zealot. Member of an unnamed alliance including the Fireman and the Runner. Location is to the Southwest, North of the Fireman and bordering the Zealot.

- The Businessman. Primary spell focus is Enchanting. Friendly relations with all contacted Awake except the Doctor. Location is to the West.

- The Doctor. Primary spell focus is Healing. Violent conflict with the Zealot. All other Awake in the city refuse to have anything to do with him. Scumbag. Location is far to the North, and isn't near any others.

- The Dryad. Primary spell focus unknown. Non-human. Old. No contact with other Awake. Location is to the East, outside the city in a forested area.

- The Fireman. Primary spell focus is Fire Control. Violent conflict with the Zealot. Member of an unnamed alliance including the Berserker and the Runner. Location is to the Southwest, South of the Berserker and bordering the Zealot.

- The Runner. Primary spell focus is Time. Violent conflict with the Zealot. Member of an unnamed alliance including the Berserker and the Fireman. Location is to the Southeast, bordering the Zealot.

- The Skeptic. Primary spell focus unknown, suspected to be Counterspelling. No contact with other Awake. Location far to the South. Doesn't border the Zealot's zone, but nothing is listed as being between the two.

- The Zealot. Primary spell focus is Forcefields. Violent conflict with the Doctor and the three members of the unnamed alliance, the Berserker, the Fireman, and the Runner. Stated goal is to subjugate or kill all other Awake in the city. Confirmed kill total is seven, including one Awake. Location just to the South, and overlaps your school, though not your house.

---​

Reading that worked fairly well as a distraction, the power didn't turn on at all. Until you got the part about exactly where 'the Zealot' spends their time that is. The flicker from that ended with your power on, leaving you feeling an odd mix of sleepy and panicked.

This might take a while to get used to.

A glance at the clock says it's early, but not so far from morning that you could get back to sleep. Mom and Dad will be waking up soon, and they'll want your older sister on the bus to her school in a couple hours, and you to catch the one to yours fifteen minutes after that.

What are your plans for the day?

( ) ?

 

[Carrnage]

First off we need to be able to completely control our new power before we start getting near bigger crowds

 

[LightMage]

I just realized, Empathy might lead us into becoming like Mao from Code Geass.

I'm not too sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

[X] Figure out how to turn your ability on and off
-[X] Befriend people at school, try to use your power to help you with this.
--[X] Normal Day Stuff

 

[Redon]

[X] Goto school
-[X] Do normal day stuff, be friendly with people.
-[X] after school, head to the library and look for books on our magic and hopefully how to control it.

Try not to meta too hard now eh? Using our powers on people without knowing the first thing about them sounds... very bad.

 

[Selias]

[X] Practice the new ability until it's time to go to school.

So, we practice at home until we're used to it, then start practicing at school (better to practice it with a group of people in a place we should be safe), then sit on a bench in the city and practice, and then start trying to influence the emotions of others, in the city.

 

[Pipeman]

Would probably be sensible to stick to ourselves for a while and get basic control of our ability.
Maybe try to think of ways we can get some unsupervised time or an excuse to go visit whomever we decide to learn from, if we decide to do so at all, since this is going to be our main difficulty at the moment.

Will go through the other magic users we currently know of:

- The Berserker. Primary spell focus is Self-Modification. Violent conflict with the Zealot. Member of an unnamed alliance including the Fireman and the Runner. Location is to the Southwest, North of the Fireman and bordering the Zealot.

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Most likely not a good idea.
Obviously we don't have very much to go on, but if he does fulfill the stereotypes of people called Berserker at all, he is most likely unwilling to help some random kid and unable to help us figure out our power.
There is some remote possibility that he may be able to help us develop some self-enhancing in the manner I described earlier, but only if he's smarter than he sounds or using something like that himself.
Then again, even if he doesn't react outright hostile to us being around someone named Berserker as a budding Empath sounds like it may not be very healthy for our mental state.

- The Businessman. Primary spell focus is Enchanting. Friendly relations with all contacted Awake except the Doctor. Location is to the West.

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Probably the most capable of teaching us about our power, but chances are he wouldn't do it for free and we have nothing to offer him.
Even our service wouldn't be worth much since he can likely do anything we'll be able to for a long time.
Learning from him would likely make us focus on using our abilities to manipulate others.

- The Doctor. Primary spell focus is Healing. Violent conflict with the Zealot. All other Awake in the city refuse to have anything to do with him. Scumbag. Location is far to the North, and isn't near any others.

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Might be able to teach us how to use our abilities to help others get over mental problems or something.
If he can, we could probably use these methods to develop nastier abilities based on them.
And, even if that doesn't work out, given that he's called The Doctor there's a chance he has broad enough knowledge of magic and is smart enough to help us figure stuff out.
But he's disliked for a reason and, unless that reason turns out to be that he despises all the others because they are all amoral sociopaths, we probably shouldn't approach.

- The Dryad. Primary spell focus unknown. Non-human. Old. No contact with other Awake. Location is to the East, outside the city in a forested area.

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Being so old, she might have knowledge that's useful, even for people from distinctly unrelated schools like us.
On the other hand being non-human, she might not care about anything out of her purview.
And she might eat us.
Not to mention that our power doesn't really work on non-humans, which would probably cause problems with her teaching us anything about it.
Then again she might also be able to help us reduce that limitation. Most likely though at the minimum cost of becoming less human mentally though.

- The Fireman. Primary spell focus is Fire Control. Violent conflict with the Zealot. Member of an unnamed alliance including the Berserker and the Runner. Location is to the Southwest, South of the Berserker and bordering the Zealot.

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Entirely different spell-focus and not likely to have a broad enough knowledge base to help.

- The Runner. Primary spell focus is Time. Violent conflict with the Zealot. Member of an unnamed alliance including the Berserker and the Fireman. Location is to the Southeast, bordering the Zealot.

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Same as with The Fireman. Slightly preferable because of the remote possibility that his apparently physical ability was originally a mental one.

- The Skeptic. Primary spell focus unknown, suspected to be Counterspelling. No contact with other Awake. Location far to the South. Doesn't border the Zealot's zone, but nothing is listed as being between the two.

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Unlikely to be of much use, though we could theoretically use him to train overcoming resistances.
Or seek refuge near him if all the feelings of those around us are driving us crazy.

- The Zealot. Primary spell focus is Forcefields. Violent conflict with the Doctor and the three members of the unnamed alliance, the Berserker, the Fireman, and the Runner. Stated goal is to subjugate or kill all other Awake in the city. Confirmed kill total is seven, including one Awake. Location just to the South, and overlaps your school, though not your house.

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I'm gonna suggest to stay the fuck away.
Far away.

Ultimately the fact that our power also isn't very suited towards a support role means teaming up with one of the more combat oriented ones is going to be hard.

 

[useless101]

So all three votes agree to go to school, but a bit of variation on whether or not to play with magic there.

Guess I'll wait on starting to write. Probably wouldn't finish before getting sleepy anyway.

 

[MHLord]

[X] Figure out how to turn your ability on and off
-[X] Befriend people at school, try to use your power to help you with this.
--[X] Normal Day Stuff