I've got two colors of question for this thread. One is "bias & mag devices across sub-universe boundaries," and the other is "which way shall we run a werecoyote." Edit: I'm saving the werecoyote for another thread, like I always seem to do.
With magic devices: I understand that while magic device operation is under level one, a device which is operated successfully while the skill it performs is above the bias curve automatically botches. I have questions concerning indigs vs. versers.
Consider two devices, a Potion of Healing (performs M2@1 Limited Damage Repair) and Aladdin's Ring (performs a high-intensity 11@ summoning). Let us say that the bias is 1@11 - high enough to support any device, low enough to curve out all summonings above @1, and leaving all healing above the level but within the curve.
Now, if anyone successfully uses the Ring, he botches. But can the verser use the potion? I think he can, because he'd be capable of a healing spell of that caliber. Next the bigger question: can the indig use the potion without botching? I believe he cannot - but then again, its effect is within the curve, and the only skill the indig himself is performing is within both the level and the curve. The wording in the rules doesn't resolve this directly, so I'm asking here.
The questions I'm more interested in have to do with sub-universe boundaries and how they interact with these restrictions. In brief:
*Can a 1@10 Piggyback Device activate contingent on the operation of a device in another sub-universe?
*Can a device activated in one sub-universe take its effect in another in which that effect is above the curve?
*I know it's possible to travel by time machine to a time in which the bias does not support the return trip; is it possible perform a similar feat with magical teleportation? (Technological teleportation?) To spy on an area with magical clairsentience where the bias is too low to support clairsentience (given that the location from which the spell is cast does support it)?
I'm exploring methods by which beings from adjacent sub-universes can be "summoned" into locales with very low (but positive) magic bias, and answers to these questions will help immensely.
Wow.
The entire point of having mag device use skills at level one is to make it possible for indigs to do by magic device (e.g., gifts from the gods, secrets of the ancients) what they cannot do directly; thus what matters is that the use skill is within the bias but the effect is within the curve. So yes, anyone can use the potion, and no one can use the ring without botching.
I would say that rules about magic crossing universe or sub-universe boundaries first face the same limitations as psionic skills: a severe penalty sit-mod against chance of success. Thus a piggyback device can only function in response to a contingency in another universe/sub-universe if the piggyback can function where it is and the skill roll beats the penalty.
On whether a skill used in one universe/sub-universe can have its effect in another, you need to be thinking in terms of the origination point of the magic. That is, if I am standing in a magical sub-universe and I create fire and throw it across the boundary into a universe where I cannot create or control magic, it continues to exist and do its damage because it is now fire, not magic. However, if I from the same position attempt to call fire down from directly above my target, that is attempting to work magic in the other universe where it will not work.
And yes, you can teleport between two universes if the originating gate is in one that can support such a gate. In theory, you could open a gate from a magical universe to a non-magical one and leave it open, so that you could pass through and pass back again, but of course anyone else could do so as well. This is a sticky point, of course, because when you are talking about working magic in the border supernatural, supernatural beings are bound by the curve of the world they are targeting; thus there would be something of a violation of the rules to create such a gate to a world where gates are impossible, at least if you were leaving it open. However, given that a botch can create such a gate in a world in which such a gate cannot be created intentionally, it is not impossible for such a gate to exist.
Clairsentience also faces the universe crossing penalty. I want to say it's -50, but I use it so rarely that I can't be certain (and my dinner is sitting atop my rule book, so I can't look it up right this minute).
If you give yourself a curve of 14, you can have devices which communicate off-world (M7@7), and so create the possibility not so much of summoning as of requesting the assistance of an off-world being. That would also make it worthwhile for those beings to try to assist, since they (being off-world) would be bound by the curve but not the level, and would have a lot more options than the summoner.
You still would have the concern about whether they would be trapped here if a gate closed behind them, but the answer to that is that they make only the briefest of appearances and never move any significant distance from the opening of their gate.
--M. J. Young
So when I see "within the bias," that means within-level&curve for indigs and within-curve for versers, and when I see "within the curve," that ignores the level regardless of who I'm talking about.
Thanks a lot. The question of piggyback devices becomes a lot less important if I can have an indig in a 1@15 world use a magic book to contact an off-world magic-user. (The piggy-back scheme involved a magic device in the 1@x world whose sole purpose was to activate a piggyback device in a related 14@x sub-universe, said device having a variety of 7@ information powers regarding the location and user of the off-world triggering device. The whole set-up would have been reminiscent of a trans-universe magical pager. I'm rather proud of the idea, actually.)
If we assume that the sub-universes are connected at a few points by naturally-occurring permanent gates (similar to the way layers of Hell were connected in 1st Ed. AD&D), a curve of 16 would be sufficient to allow off-world beings to visit without having to maintain gates by which to return; a 12@4 Teleport Self Out could be used to get to one of the gates (whose location would have been memorized and/or tagged in advance), and the same skill could be re-used to return home after passing through the gate. In this way we can have a 1@15 world where the mortals can use very little magic themselves - but those unwary folk who stumble across artifacts of power may find themselves calling up more than they can put down.
I imagine that 1@10 Torture Spirit Power might be a valuable skill for an indig to cultivate. A curve of sixteen allows a off-world visitor a great many options that, perhaps, you would rather he not have.
Edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention - one advantage of having your "summoning" (7@7) device be a book is that you can pen a very complicated and powerful M1@4 Bonus Skill Checks of In-Bound Off-World Teleporters spell for the edification of your would-be summoners.
Sounds good.
The distinctions between "sub-universes" and "related universes" are actually intentionally vague. The former tends to refer to lines which are crossed pretty regularly and often without recognition; the latter to distinct worlds in which a few indigs from one or the other make trips between them. The rules are otherwise much the same.
Some examples of sub-universes:
- In Blake's 7, there is one episode in which an entire planet is populated by two ghosts who have incredible magical powers within their planet and the immediate orbit around it, to the point that they can override technology, teleport others at will, and create an environment in which to place them. Nowhere else in the entire universe (fifty-two episodes, if I recall correctly) is there any trace of magic, the world otherwise being strong in tech, psi, and bod, and the powers of these incredibly potent beings do not extend beyond that boundary. The simplest way to handle it is to make that planet its own sub-universe in which the bias rules are different.
- Graeme is currently in a world divided into three sub-universes, each ruled by different gods and having different biases, at war with each other. He has already noticed one effect of this, that the Roman technological weapons do not function as well once they are out of Roman territory.
- I think Rifts is in this group, as it has different rules in different universes, but anyone can wander between universes.
- Sliders is almost certainly a related universes story: the characters can travel to universes even that have different biases (although never to one where their operate sliding control timer device skill fails), but all of them have an earth similar enough to our own that California is geographically present.
- Narnia might be like this, if you get as far as The Magician's Nephew and discover the Wood Between the Worlds; from that border supernatural-like realm you can travel to uncounted universes, but probably not to every universe. That's a debatable point, particularly since if the wood between the worlds is a border supernatural, it makes perfect sense that all universes could be reached from it, and this analysis breaks down. However, Earth and Narnia, at least, are related universes, with a very few people very rarely traveling between them.
Yeah, that probably has nothing helpful in it at all, but maybe it will at least explain that the distinction I'm inclined to make doesn't matter.
--M. J. Young