commanderproton
Senior Member
THE WEIGHT OF REALITY
~or~
MAGIC SCHMAGIC
The Narrative seeks to rewrite reality as we know it. It does this mostly in small, subtle ways. Sometimes...not so subtle. But reality has a weight, an inertia. It's hard to shift without a lot of power or a lot of leverage. The latter is considerably easier to achieve.
The Narrative can stack the deck and weight the dice, nudging events to suit its purposes. It nudges people, too, whispering in their ears. Whether it's the angel or the devil on your shoulder depends on the circumstances.
The powers available to ME's work the same way. Those abilities which nudge probability or influence behavior are easy enough to use: the Pied Piper's musical control over animals, Chicken Little's ability to sway the emotions of a crowd, or Goldilocks' ability to bypass home security. Most of these can be used without dipping too deeply into the story.
Other abilities, though, defy reality too greatly, and the cost of breathing fire or flying is giving yourself over to the Narrative and allowing it to change you.
There are, however, loopholes. Part of what makes the more subtle magic of probability or behavior manipulation is that it happens invisibly. Strange and unlikely as it may be, they could, technically, be explained, whereas turning straw to gold or summoning a blizzard is considerably more dramatic, and can't be explained away. The more overt magics have a hard time working in the face of mankind's collective disbelief.
But magic worked in private, or only in the presence of those who believe, can be worked a little more easily, without flinging oneself into the story.
LIBRIS also has what's been dubbed "Q Branch", where Dwarves, Witches, Fairies and Wizards create magically empowered tools for the field agents to use. These are mostly charms, talismans, and one-shot spell items which can be used even by Level 0 agents.
*to be updated as needed.
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