Monastery Outreach Projects

There are two fantasy novels that I have read recently that have interesting magic systems. Here is where I comment on them and comment offhandedly about how I might build them in HERO.

The Mistborn Trilogy

First, Mistborn: The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson. The magic is called Allomancy, because it uses (or "burns") amounts of ingested metals and/or alloys to power the magic. There are two kinds of Allomancers in this world -- Mistings and Mistborn -- both of which must have some Noble blood. The Mistings are only capable of using one of the abilities detailed below, but a Mistborn can do all of them. There is no halfway. It is either only one, or all of them.

Code:

ALLOMANCY QUICK-REFERENCE CHART
METAL	EFFECT				MISTING TITLE 
Iron	Pulls on Nearby Metals		Lurcher 
Steel	Pushes on Nearby Metals		Coinshot 
Tin	Enhances Senses			Tineye 
Pewter	Enhances Physical Abilities	Pewterarm, Thug 
Brass	Soothes Emotions		Soother 
Zinc	Riots Emotions			Rioter 
Copper	Hides Allomancy			Smoker 
Bronze	Reveals Allomancy		Seeker

Okay, how it works: The Allomancer swallows an amount of the indicated metal (the more pure the better), and a "pool" of power is formed, which is used to execute the Allomantic ability. For a Misting, only one metal/ability is useful, but a Mistborn may have all of them. Each metal creates its own, separate, pool of power (for a Mistborn) which powers a single ability. For more details, read the book, or go to the Wikipedia entry.

So, to build this in HERO . . . Hmm. Obviously each ability has its own END Reserve, which is only recovered by ingesting the correct metal. From there, it is specific to the metal involved, but most of them would be a multipower, as there are, in fact multiple Powers involved. For example, burning Iron allows the Allomancer to pull any metal he wants directly toward him (Telekinesis), but it also shows him where all metals are (Detect metals). The way it is described in the book, the Allomancer sees a number of blue lines leading from his own body to the sources of all metals nearby (the brightness of the line indicating how much metal and/or how far away it is), and he mentally "tugs" on one of these lines to pull that metal to him. The interesting (and sometimes useful) side effect is that, if the metal pulled is unable to move to (or is significantly heaver than) the allomancer, he will be pulled to it, instead.

Mistborn, specifically, are able to use combinations of these abilities to do more intersting things. Like using Iron and Steel together to effect a limited form of flight/leaping. The question is, should this be modeled as a separate Power, or just a side effect of the Powers he already uses?

The Obsidian Trilogy

The other book is The Outstretched Shadow by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. In this book, magic comes with a price, and how that price is paid is based on the kind of magic you use.

High Magic uses symbols and equations, and generally draws power from the Mages personal store, or (preferable to the High Mages) from power stored in a "keystone."

Dark Magic users draw power from the pain and fear that they cause others.

Wild Mages bargain for their effects and the cost to be paid with a "higher power" (the source of the wild magic). There is always some personal cost in power to cast the spells, but with greater effects, there are other costs. The odd thing is, the "other cost" may not be actual power, but may involve some service to be performed. Also, with Wild Magic, the cost may be shared among several people, but they must always be willing participants (this also can be done with High Magic).

These are both easier and harder to model in HERO. Easier, because the range of effects is more wide open, allowing any power to become a spell (probably via a VPP). Harder, because the costs involved are a lot less well-defined, and often do not even include anything that can be measured via HERO statistics. How much END does one get from terrifying someone? From rescuing a little girl's kitten from a tree (this one was actually in the book)? And, also harder because the "negotiation" aspect of a spell makes it more apt to be abuse-able and/or dependent upon the whims of the GM at that moment.