The concept of Yin and Yang is that of two opposing and cooperative forces that need each other, and yet fight each other. I think its a useful concept in describing reality, but it works at a level less than the ultimate. This is seen in stories which have a Balance which the two sides need to achieve, or which is the goal of the truly wise. This Balance is the Ultimate.
Balance is defined as Righteousness which is the Ultimate.
An example of this is seen in D&D where Balance=Nature.
Now Multiverser is more sophisticated than D&D because the Balance would be any sort of Neutral Hobby, not just Protecting the Environment.
And D&D is more sophisticated than Yin-Yang because it has more than just two choices, or one axis, but two axises. But thats not really the to the point here, so we'll slide past that.
You can have a wide array of two choices.
Law vs. Chaos (Michael Moorcock, L.E. Modesit Jr.)
Populism vs. Elitism
Man vs. Woman
Fire vs. Ice
Change vs. Stasis
Barbarianism vs. Civilization
Statism vs. Libertarianism
License vs. Law
Morality vs. Libertine
There are a number of ways one can deal with this.
One side can be represented by Orcs say. The Barbarian Orcs who worship strength, live in tribes, and eat their enemies and enslave the weak vs. the moral city building dwarves. This is a very clear moral choice. Monsters vs. Men.
Or Cyberpunk where you have Street Samurai and Deckers vs. the Corporat Scum. This is a little more morally complex, but one side is clearly listed as Evil.
Or you can have a situation where neither side is morally superior, innately, although in a particular case one side might be.
And of course, there is the Appeal to the Balance set up.
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One of the ways to deal with this is to have varying levels of dominance or victory for a particular side.
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Often the way to set this up is to have the two sides have a form of magic different from each other, and give no one else any magic.
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Lets do an example: Man vs. Women
Monsters vs. Men.
The Kujorn are brutal war-like monstrous humanoids who average ten feet tall, and are heavily armed with swords and armor. Their opposition is Humanity, and the most effective weapon Humanity has are the priestesses of Lor. With their magic they are able to cause the Kujorn to feel the pain they deal, and to lash them with magic whips, and to coerce them with vocal compulsion magic.
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I think a Little Multiverse with an Entrance Effect with all the deities in charge of this Multiverse being Neutral, and with all the magic that is arcane being powerblocked (perhaps not about the arcane being powerblocked). And then you Yin-Yang all the universes. And for the Entrance Effect, you have any verser or other visitor arrives through the Prism.
The Prism sends them to a universe where their skills will either result in learning magic faster, or will directly jump them into magic. In universes where magic is limited to a few by a powerblock (Only those with Quality X or Quality Y may do magic) the Prism will make sure they can do magic in the universe.
A person with a biology degree might be sent to a universe where only people with a deep understanding of biology can do magic, or to a universe where anyone can do magic but all magic is biologically based so that they have a decided edge on others, or even stronger where they get half of their biology skill as a some sort of magic skill just because.
There are a lot of different ideas here. Its not completely coherent.
It was a question posed. How did Anakin Skywalker bring balance to The Force? By reducing the thousands of Jedi down to the number of Sith. Sometimes balance isn't a good thing.
Change vs. Stasis
I recently read somewhere that liberals want us to plow ahead and make more mistakes, while conservatives want to prevent us from correcting those we've already made.
I'm intrigued by a world in which the powers are neutral but arcane magic is power blocked; usually powers power block arcane magic to force magic-using characters to choose a side, but usually arcane powers are eager to avoid forcing such an issue (in some sense they have yet to choose a side themselves, although some are genuinely committed to the compromise).
I essentially dislike any concept that shortcuts a character into a magic-using character without his decision to be one. First of all, there is a tendency for those player characters who do not use magic to fall into one of two camps: either they are atheists who do not believe in magic (Peter Adams) or they have a moral objection to it (Nikolaj was in this camp, until he started tapping the power of prayer--and he is still morally opposed to psionics). Secondly, no one should ever do magic "by accident" save only in the case of accidentally triggering some magic device that someone (else) left with an activation sensor to respond to a specific event. Magic is based on expectations, and thus the user must be intending to use magic for magic to work--it won't work because he thinks he's doing something else.
If all you mean is that knowledge of certain (technological) fields (that is, "science") will bonus learning and/or use of certain forms of magic, that's an interesting and useful application. My suggestion would be that the skill ability level of the applicable field substitute for a religion bonus, and therefore the magic must be arcane, half the SAL of the (presumably @0) knowledge skill would apply, and there would be a correlation between the area of knowledge and the nature of the magic (e.g., skills in anatomy and physiology or medicine or biology could be applied to healing or necromantic skills, environmental sciences could be used for purification and perhaps summoning of creatures, metallurgy for transmutations, that sort of thing).
--M. J. Young
I can go with all these points.
Let's try a Change vs. Stasis world.
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I'm going to slant it in advantage of Change, but not wholly.
The Reigning Powers of Yarran are the Shimmering Lord and the Crystal Lady. On the face of it the Shimmerer is for Change, but he's a man, and that's considered to be more stable here so he's for Stasis, but then his works are change agents at times so he's for Change... It goes on, and likewise for Crystaline. Religious arguements about the will of the Two Gods can be inconclusive at times. They like it this way. They want people to have a basic ethical guidelines to keep them from completly falling off track, but they want a lot of flexibility and variety of thought in their worshippers. In reality both embody Change and Stasis, but in different ways.
Change Power as its known is also known in its more extreme forms as Wild Magic and True Worship. A Changist has an affinity for water and water magic, can change people or beasts into something else, can open minds to new possibilities, can break minds and bodies by forcing wrong changes (this is generally regarded as dark magic). As WM, change energy is pushed out into the world, and the subconscious of the caster shapes it. As True Worship, the Changist appeals to the Two Gods to Change the World as they wish (often such a Changist will only worship one of the gods, or even an aspect of one such as the Storm King--the Shimmering Lord in his aspect as ruler of hurricanes.)
However, the Two Gods do not go out of their way to encourage TW. But they are not immune to the pleas for help.
A Lord of Stasis (this is their title--Changists tend to be less hierarchical and have less titles. A Master Changist can be simply an experienced magi, or a worldshaker of the type that is seen once in a century) has as an extreme True Worship, and as another extreme, Preservationists who enchant items to preserve them, and in legend had enchanted whole cities against the Day of the End when they would be needed. It is said that some of the greatest heroes of all time were caught before death by the Preservationists and wait in hidden vaults (The GM could put a verser in these vaults.)
A Lord of Stasis may stop motion such as a runaway carriage, or wind blowing into the sails of an enemy ship, or the beating of a heart (this is regarded as dark magic.) A Lord of Stasis may remind and strengthen the mind to a set purpose. Few soldiers under command of a Captain of Stasis ever break and run even under the most hideous losses. A Magi of Stasis may repeat something he has seen done if its clear in his mind, or he may cause another to repeat a skill they have used (the first arrow hits on its own, the rest must hit...this is one of the 'Magi's Sayings'.)
The Seven Isles are the most powerful of the nations and areas on Yarran. They use clipper ships and auto-firing ballista (ten shots a minute), accounting, trade merchants, warehouses... They are a kingdom dominated by Changists. It is legal to be a Lord of Stasis here, and followers of Stasis are not against the law, but every congregation or community of Stasis workers has a royal spy in it. And there are strict laws against 'fighting the progress of mankind'.
This is a mercantile society with a strong bent toward technological advance.
Wanderias is a large continent named for the horse nomads who use to own it, and now are forced to subsist on the edges of its eastern dessert.
The largest nation on it is the Duchy of Per. The Grand Duke is a young man, and a devoted Changist who worships the Lady of Hope unlike the Seven Isles which are less enthused and more catholic. However, he has hundreds of Lords of Stasis scattered in the small villages of his backwards domain who resist the 'needed changes' quite effectively. Some argue that he is 'taking away traditional rights of the peasant' and he replies 'that he is creating a structure for good roads instead of mud pits which will benefit everyone'.
His highest tech is a galleon, and he has few of those. He has little ability to project power inside or outside his domain.
Morcan is the Wanderias' third largest nation, but the most powerful. It is wholly dedicated to the Lords of Stasis, and it views the Seven Isles as EVIL. The Morcanites have a figurehead queen, but the great nobles run the country as they have for the last thousand years, and they see no reason to change anything. Feudalism and serfdom and aristocracy was good enough for their great-great-grandpa and its good enough for them.
Morcan allows pirates to use sections of their coast as safe haven to harrass the Seven Isles shipping. With the great mass of people in Morcan (about five times as many as in the Seven Isles), no Isles army has ever succeeded in taking a Morcanite city. The Isles folks hate the Morcanites with a frustrated passion.
Morcan also interferes in Per by privately supporting the Lords of Stasis in the villages.
To the east of Morcan lie the Wedward Marches run by the powerful and distrusted Wedward Family. Its not as quite as Great as the other noble families, but what it lacks in courtly graces and money, it makes up for in plentiful children and military talent. Several of the greatest generals of the last thousand years were Wedwards, and 'even a dumb Wedward can be a captain' as the saying goes.
Its thought, but not mentioned, that in some distant time a Master Changist infused a certain talent into the Wedward Family. In any case, there are deep woods beyond the Wedwards where monstrous things roam, and there is the border with Timclair, and they need that talent to survive. And if Changists find secret caches and friendly faces in the dark of night, and the Family seems willing to come up with innovative explanations as to why their novel tactics and weapons are really old and traditional, why survival seems to prove the Wedward Family right, or so they say.
Timclair is also under the control of the Lords of Stasis, but under control seems a limited way to put it. Changists are boiled alive in the water they revere. Being suspected of being a Changist without much proof can be fatal.
Timclair is short of the Eastern Dessert and the land is dry, and the sheep eat the grass and don't help. Small villages exist in a location and move on to another when the sheep destroy what is there.
Part of the reason the independent villages of Timclair are so friendly to Stasis is they are subsistence villages. Change is risky. Sure, you might plant food in a new way and double your crop. OTOH, you might lose everything, and since everyone is needed to get enough food to get by...
Still bad times come....
And then the tribes get together, and send a horde to go plunder Morcan. The Wedwards try to stop this. The horde gets a bunch killed off which lessens the need for food, and it brings back a lot of food and stuff which also helps.
"Summer without water brings winter without peace."
Beyond the Timclair are the Wanderlias horse nomads who embrace Change with a passion. They don't kill if you disagree with them about religion. They kill if 1)They have not offered you bread. 2)You have stuff or they are bored. and 3)You don't look that much tougher than them.
"Live fast, die young, have a beautiful corpse."
A verser arriving in this world will have an advantage if they have a Marine degree of some kind, or have an understanding of Fluid Dynamics, or are some sort of Venture Capitalist or such like. These all help a Changist.
A verser arriving in this world will have an advantage if they have a degree in Physics, or are an enviromentalist. These help the Stasists.
Virtue vs. Freedom
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On the side of Virtue are Feminists, Feminazis (by Rush's definition there are less than twenty-five in the US...women who make a sacrament of abortion), Christian Dominionists, Political Correctness types...
On the side of Freedom are Survivalists, Anarch-Capitalists, Hugh Hefner, and the Suburbs and Chaos City.
The Balance in this world is represented by Social Conservatism which intertwines and balances the goals of Virtue and Freedom.
Now let's decide on the tech level and magic level...
The Reigning Power disadvantages any magic that is not based in freedom or virtue by -20. Arcane magic is powerblocked.
Psionics is flatline. Body is Earth normal.
The Balance Magic Modifier: Magic seeks its balance, and thus the more it is unbalanced, the stronger the bonus to the other side for rebalancing. However, there is also an inertia to a great unbalance so there is a negative sit-mod that is applied first.
<i>If an Allsoul Prophetess (a feminist religion) calls lightning down in the Suburbs its more difficult than if she did it at home. If she calls it down in Chaos City which is even more tilted to Freedom than the Suburbs, she has more problems.</i>
However, the greater difficulty also allows for her to tap into the imbalance which powers her magic.
I think that a DM, or Dice Modifier is probably called for here. Its been a long time since I used one. But the idea of making it harder to hit, but more damaging if one does seems to fit pretty well rather than a more standard mod.
Tech level: Bronze Age. Chariots, bronze swords, galleons, bronze breastplate, phalanxes; city-states, and small nations, and tribal hordes is the description.
The World of Freeland:
The Matriarchy of Airia follows the Allsoul who is neither male nor female. They believe as a matter of faith that men and women are just alike except where women are superior.
They are aware that their rule is somewhat fragile so they tend to be a little over the top when it comes to dealing with threats. Most of the men have low professional skills at Soothing Overwrought Woman (this can be the wife and Lady of the House or simply a magistrate or manager one is called before).
Officers in the Phalanxes are always women, but men and women serve alike in the ranks. Serving in the Phalanxes is the duty of all property owners, but it is also open to volunteers from lessers (and loot in war is a great way to become an upper and if one is ambitious and socially pleasing and energetic one can use the Phalanxes as an entry point into the uppers).
Only property owners can vote in the once weekly Moot where the Matriarch's decisions are either ratified or nullified, and only women can own property (but husbands of woman owning property are also obliged to serve in the Phalanxes.)
The Ladycity is a beautiful place of sculpted rose marble and promenades brightly colored with awnings of dazzling array, and several dozen small markets (its often called the City of Markets) with four main markets in each of the quadrants of the city. It is well-guarded, but occasionally bands of brigands act up in the alleys for a bit until they are tracked down.
The Temple of the Allsoul is larger than the Palace of the Matriarch, but then the Temple has very large meetings inside it. The religious leaders are all women.
The land is imbalanced toward Virtue by a five pt. dice modifier. It is relatively close to balance. The Virtue it espouses is Egalitarianism between Men and Women or Feminism.
Another land....
On the far side of Airia is the Bandit Mountains so called for their abundant brigandage in days of old. Now tho', the bandits are gone. A new religion has risen in the dark pine-filled slopes and amongst the short, jagged peaks of this not very imposing but almost impassable mountain range. And like the bandits before them, they are almost impossible to root out from their fastnesses and the wild tangles of underbrush.
But the new religion won out over bandits who raped and burned by being more terrifying than they could imagine.
Men were evil, the spawn of darkness. Sacrificing your firstborn to the Pure Flame was righteousness and it brought power.
The enemies of these two lands call the first 'hysterical', but the second they name 'demon worshippers'.
Men who are captured by one of the abundant traps in these mountains, or surrendered when an avalanche was near set on them by magic find themselves starved for a week and then set free naked. Thirty minutes later, the Hunters with their long stillettos are on the prisoner's heels. If they like him, they tie him up, and brand him with a magic brand that brings back the pain of fire every time he disobeys. If they don't like him, or they are hungry, they cook him over the campfire...often alive.
The Baalarian were so terrible that even hardened brigands fled from them and now the Baalarian rule the Bandit Mountains by a coaliton of tribes with the ruler of each tribe being the woman who holds the sacred Killing Stick. Only one of these tribal leaders can take the Crystal Knife from the Dead Woman (her title, she's actually alive) who rules all the tribes.
So rulership depends on strength and cunning. Poison the tribal leader, or ambush her on the way to the latrine with a knife, or challenge her to a swordfight at the nightly meal, or cast magic to bury her teepee in an a mudslide....and you too can be the new leader. Until someone bumps you off.
The Baalarian tend to use earth based magics. Airians tend to go for air based or storm based magics.
This land is tilted toward Virtue (of the 'its good to kill Demon Males') variety by a -15 DM.
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That's enough for now. As should be clear, I've made metaphor countries for Feminists (Airia) and Feminazis (Baalarian).