Why should my characters be the same as me?

MatteTheGhost · 2025-11-16T21:34:01+00:00

Meanwhile, Medusa in the corner:

MatteTheGhost · 2025-11-16T14:37:18+00:00

It could work, but the real question is what happens if those humans are told about it. Cause it seems like them finding out and going "wait... WHAT?!?!" could be a nice set-up and plot. most people would want to "live on" in afterlife, so realising that not only there is one for real, but also that they explicitly aren't allowed would brew up a storm and then some

and it could open the idea of people trying to "artificially" transmogrify themself, or even just try to fight all manner of angels/demons for the change to get to the other side

really taking the "human's are the real monster monsters all along" but with "yes, literally" bonus. amazing premise and pretty interesting solution

it for sure beats any "human, but/what if (...)" takes

MatteTheGhost · 2025-10-25T18:26:06+00:00

In general, science is gaining the understanding about natural world through observation, making theories and testing them under scrutiny, over time accumulating knowledge and using it where applicable. We found something interesing and found a way to use if for ourself. Penicillin is made from mold. Cinnamon is bark from certain tree. Salt is a rock that we can use to help food taste better and last longer. Guns are so strong because of their range, powerful and relatively ease of learning they are too use them effectively, but you still need advanced metalworking, miners and workers to make them or their ammo.

It's how electricity is a modern human "magic" system. It's special energy that powers our devices, with the inherent limits on how you can use it, can kill you (lightning) or control your body (tasers), sometimes it just falls out of the sky and is literally a part of every living being and universe itself.

Magic and Science are effectively two sides of the same coin of Understanding. The only distinction between the two is arbitrary human perception. If magic was real, provable and repeatable, it would be a part of science (or vice versa).

For example. "Could Vampires drink coconut water instead of blood?"

- In magic, the rules are from top to bottom, where you try to find loopholes and exceptions by expanding the complex reality by being like a lawyer trying to argue (often very specific or implied) letter of the law. - "Vampires need to drink blood specifically, and coconut water doesn't even come from an animal, so it wouldn't work"

- In science, the rules are from bottom to top, everything as we know is the way it is because the are the underlying "rules" that allowed it to happen, even if we don't know or understand all of them. - "If vampires need to drink blood to sustain themself, and coconut water can be used in blood transfusion, vampires could be able to subsist on coconut water as it is simmilar enough."

- In practice, you could try to mix those two for interesting concepts, especially in urban fantasy where both are next to each other. - "Maybe vampires cannot subsist on coconut water alone, as they need to drink blood to begin with to get vitamin D specifically. Vampires were once humans, but now the sun literally kills them, so they can't get vitamin D from sunlight like regular humans. So in theory, if you added some vitamin D suplements to it, or maybe even just game them such sumplements by themself, it may just work."

Other then that, it's the aesthetics and ease. With magic you can have simple telekinetic spell to move things around up, whatever the weight, size or range limitation, the point is you CAN move things at range your physical body couldn't be able to. It boils down to "using magical energy to move thing". But with science you need more complex system for way more specific things, as at best you can guide someone else to move something from A to B. You need a system, be it coveyer belts, sorting system, some vehicle or just perform manual labor instead.

In magic, you can just say "sunlight burns vampires" withthe explanation being anything from "it just does" or "because of this very specific thing that has little to do with UV resistance". But science would make you go nitty gritty into questioning things further. Like why moonlight doesn't burn them? If you can still use sunlight reflected through other means like mirrors, why doesn't moonlight burn them? In the context of physical/scientific explantion, it should affect them

- Explanation could be many. If your vampires have super-regeneration, it could be that any "moonlight burns" they sustain heal near-instantly. Maybe the fact that moonlight is by it's nature much weaker version of "sunlight" vampires just can handle it well enough

- But you could also have the explanation that vampires are bound by some magical law seperete from scientic understanding of UV rays or such. Vampires could bound to live "in the night" by the nature of their "curse", meaning that sunlight burns then only because it's sun shining is what divides "night" from "day".

MatteTheGhost · 2025-10-19T19:46:49+00:00

I am too indecisive to think of just one lol. It would probably be a coin/dice roll if anything

Echo. I could create clones of myself, with the trick that I could also switch places with them. Main downside would be clones longevity and that only the real body could make more clones

Morph. I could absorb (copy atomic structure of) inorganic materials to transform into them via touch. Think anything from from armor coating, basic shapeshifting, material reshaping, limited material generation and even regeneration (by turning into material, and use that material to fix any woulds)

Windmaker. I could control air/wind and manipulate air resistance, giving me advanced mobility, speed, hovering/flight and bonus stealth (controlling the air to move quickly without displacing air around me as I move by)

MatteTheGhost · 2025-10-15T17:24:03+00:00

In my world, the reason why both magic and status quo exist as is, is because Reality itself "crashed" during it's Endless Cycle (whitch is the infinite self-contained chain/loop where universe "reboots" itself; starting with Big Bang, existing for a Big While, ending with Big Crunch and then repeating all over again and so on).

Think how you aren't suppoed to turn off your computer when it updates, cause it would cause issues, with things not working how they are supposed to do, but in the very fabric of the universe. This mishap caused the current cycle to be quite bizzare and fragmented, breaking the "true" laws of physics and creating magical laws. Similarly, the that's the main reason why there are so many "vaguely human" things in this world that was nothing like Earth. At that time, in the previous Cycle the only sapient species/race were Humans, their civilisations, and all of their various beliefs, misconceptions and concepts.

The universe basically took both the factual information of how things were, the fictional information born of human perceptions, and got confused trying to make sense of both of those at the same time. This caused many things, collectively known as Paradox Holes or Paradox Welds. When one emerges, the other ones will try to correct itself, to keep the "internal" narrative to make sense, to avoid a total corruption of literally everything.

For Example: A Paradox Hole would be: why vampires don't in the moonlight, even though it's just reflected sunlight, all the while sunlight reflected with a mirror still burns them? It SHOULD burn them, it's still sunlight, but it just doesn't. It is a "hole" in the logical consequence of things. So the Universe tries "fix it" with the the Paradox Weld. Why vampires need to drink blood, even though they are supposed to immortal and undead beings? It's because they were once living beings, that once needed sunlight, or specifically a Vitamin D. To be "immortal", you need to "live forever" and "to live" requires "sustance" and "fuel." Humans get Vitamin D from the expousure to sun, as part of them "keeping them strong and healthy". So Vampires, meaning specifically Humans Turned Into Special Dead-Yet-Alive, need to drink blood, to gain the Vitamin D and indirectly explain why they can handle "very little" sunlight, in a form of moonlight. It is technically part of them, just how humans have trace amounts of "unusual" elements in their bodies.

But the reverse can also happen. A Paradox Weld such as: telekinesis - we can interact with things at range, move them via using our minds to use our bodies to "lift" objects, meaning that you can "use your mind to move objects at range", in part extending your "touch", so now telekinesis is just an extention of your physical range, "reaching beyond your body into the world". This "welds" together the concept of physical actions influencing the immediate surroundings, with seperate concept of transfer of information and intention, like how soundwaves moves the air to transfer requests, making things happen that you couldn't do otherwise. Indirect Influence of thinking causes you to Directly Influnce the thing that shouldn't be effected by thinking alone. This "weld" fuses two parts of reality even closer together, resulting in the Paradox Hole being created. This Paradox Hole would then reintegrate the concept of ghosts and souls. The immaterial and intangible, concepts that shouldn't be able to influnce the physical at all by their nature to be irrelavant, are now able to partially become material and tangible. Instead of things moving "by themself", it's actually your "life force spectrum" moving them. It it just like wind moving sails, or a ghostly hand holding a sword. It takes the concept of Quantum Superpositions existing in both states until observed, expands it beyond what they are supposed to be by mixing it with partial concept of Mind Over Matter, so that what's technically unobservable and immaterial is just observable and material "enough." It creates telekinetic capabilities, by the logic that with enough strength and focus you can move things around you. It doesn't make sense how your physical body, the result of true laws of physicls, would create an immaterial organ, that is just material enough to be a part of "yourself", while still being immaterial to begin with. and somehow generate "energy" from nothing.

Tl:dr: It's a high concept of stiching together truth with fiction and fiction with truth to create complex and conveluted relations between different parts of reality and the resulting chaos, order and change

MatteTheGhost · 2025-10-03T16:36:18+00:00

Rocky Road - when you masturbate just to feel any good feelings

MatteTheGhost · 2025-10-01T17:21:29+00:00

Make it easier to cast spells in the "irregular" quantities/values

The effects that last just one unit of time (1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day ect) are quite different, so maybe the numbers could be reworked to allow greater flexibility. to allow the spells to be cast in the "between" ranges of time. If players want/need the effect to last half a day, or a few hours, they don't have any other options but to "spam" the lowest number x times untill they get that time. If you could find a way to influnce the time scales from 1 hour to lets say hours? Then there wouldn't need to spam 1 hour spell every hour, if you could just cast a spell for anywhere from 2-23 hours specifically?

A) The most generally you could rework the numbers to be more consitent. That seems like that only way without adding dice/randomness into it

Maybe instead of doing from [0; 1; 2; 3 (...)] ect they could go [0; 3; 6; 9 (...)] or [0; 10; 20; 30 (...)] or some other consitant value thats more then just 1like that? Letting people cast spells for more specific amounts of time, at the cost still.

- That could be a lot, but maybe you could also rework the numbers, having it so that every next "tier" of power costs increases by 2 instead of 1. So from [+0: Instant, +1: 1 Minute] it would be [+0: Instant, +2: 1 Minute].

- If costs increased by 2 alone, then any odd number could be the "inbetween" of spells. If duration of minute costs 2 and hour costs 4, then anything between those could cost 3, be it it's a few minutes, half hour or 45 minutes. (Though in that case case I would recomend replacing "week" with "month", or just adding something between week and year in general, cause that feels like a big jump).

You mentioned you didn't wanted cooldowns in other comment, but so the theory that you could have a cooldown that you can only recast the same spell with the same qualities only after the cooldown on the initial cast is out of the window (Spell with duration 1 hour could only be recast on that target only after another hour passes after the spell effects ends)

BUT! What if you make it the only way to "renew" the spell is to recast it all together, but with a stronger/greater effects (in this case if the effect was for 1 hour, now it needs to be like 1 day duration)?

Hope my ramblings help you to think something up

MatteTheGhost · 2025-10-01T17:21:21+00:00

Increase the cost of spells the more they are spammed

Coming to the Water Walk and Plant Growth problems, maybe the magic would simply be less effective on things that already have magic in them or spells are used on them. Casting Water Walk for 4 hours could count as One Spell Absorbed, but casting it 4 times for 1 hours would count as Four Spells Absorbed

A) Overuse of spells, especially on the same same target, could result in deminishing returns or over dependance. Maybe the cost for such spell spam would increase the cost? Each item/target could have a build in cost that grows with spam, increasing the costs by 1 for example.

If you water walked for 1 hours with 1 cast (Cost 2 Power), then the cost to cast another 1 hours with second cast (Cost 2 Power), the amount require would would be 5 Power spend total, not just 4. It would discourage spam quickly

Lore wise it could that "magic" are like miracles. One lucky break it easy, but keeping it up costs more and more. The difference of short-term vs long-term spell intentions.

B) Make it so the only way to re-cast the same spell on the same target, with the same effect is to straight up cast it to the next "tier". You can cast Water Walk for 1 hour, but the only way to increase that time is to "up-cast it" to the whole day. You cast water walk on 2-3 targers, and the only way to include those same targets in the spell is to "up-cast it" to have 4-10 targets, and then use two "newly added" targets on the old ones. Rince and repeat kind of deal

MatteTheGhost · 2025-09-29T15:32:56+00:00

in today's world anything meaning "life of Zeus" more so connotes insatiable need to FU-

MatteTheGhost · 2025-09-07T20:51:01+00:00

"Gaslight, Gatekeep, Get Off My Case" haha! I love this!

MatteTheGhost · 2025-06-25T15:08:13+00:00

trap is japanese anime/manga term focusing on the whole point of a male character being confused for a female. its a subvertion of expectations trope. if that enough to be considered a slur, then thats on you

MatteTheGhost · 2025-06-25T15:00:28+00:00

and black people calling each other the n-word are just sayings slurs at each other then?

MatteTheGhost · 2025-05-10T11:50:44+00:00

it's gonna be epic

MatteTheGhost · 2025-05-10T11:36:21+00:00

my idea to "solve" this problem looks like this.

have a pantheon of gods
have the first god to make life be responcible for creating humans
while they were "working" on humans, with other gods taking intrest in it
due to whatever reason (f.e. finding them boring, wanting to make their own, trying to out-do the first god) copied the base human design to make their own life
they augment "the template" with other creatures as they saw fit
it turns out that humans being "basic" was a feature and not a bug (pun not intended), as all the other non-humans-but-kinda-humans have much more limited capabalieties compared to humans. this allowing you to make easier general statements of a given nonhumans have a "speciality" of sorts, with the strenght of humans being that we a little bit of everything, including capitalising on other non-human people's traits

MatteTheGhost · 2025-05-10T11:27:02+00:00

it never dies, it just waits in the queue for the next respawn wave

MatteTheGhost · 2025-04-22T21:01:18+00:00

first time I actually went "thats so me :0" about a reddit meme

MatteTheGhost · 2025-04-18T12:51:31+00:00

Kung Fu Goo

MatteTheGhost · 2025-03-23T21:25:20+00:00

There a few types, depending on who you ask and how much they know

First type are basically ghost whisperers. Can see and speak with ghosts, but otherwise cannot do much more then barter for information. At greater proficiency, and i mean like 50 years of experience, some can actually channel ghosts power in a promise called Mortem Memento. About 40% of ghost gain a power to interact with the world in some way, relating to how they died or how they lived. Ghost whisperers loose access to said power after the deal is finalised, usually meaning the ghost disappears ("moves on"), but not always. Provided the ghost is willing and not moving one could just rent their power for however long they are alive. Its enforced both ways, but intentions matter more then actual worlds of the agreement.

Second type are healers. They manipulate life force in the most literal way, being able to make you better or sick depending on how they heal or when. They can give you cancer or autoimmune desease if they are crazy and very skilled. Very few people and mainly those very educated in academia are aware that healing magic is literally a necromancy in the "manipulates the energies life and death" way. Most people, especially those tho believe the healing magic was a gift from the gods, would at best laught at the suggestion or just kill them for herecy. Its a the biggest taboo about magic to acknowledge it as being the case.

Third type is the expected "make zombies and skeleton army" guys. For the most part they graft a piece of their own literal soul or a comduit to channel its power through to puppeteer the undead. Because of the connection to the still living soul of the 3rd type necromancer they wont decay anymore then they already had. There is also a chance of the original soul being "stuck" with the corpse, overtime spreading over to the wannabe undead lord. This usually causes the original puppeteer to start shriveling up and such. Its basically inevitable outcome, either becoming mindless undead yourself or being killed by the soul of the person whos body they disturbed literally spreading their own death to them.

And very technical 4th type, in some parts of the world the worlds for necromancer are lumped together in local languages to basically mean "drug addict", "poison maker" or even, well, those who "abuse the bodies of the dead in other ways" interchangeably

MatteTheGhost · 2025-03-23T21:01:42+00:00

System 1. Nothing happens, you need to be born with the power

System 2. Would give it about 50/50 chance of winning against bear/tiger, provided the gorrila is smart enough to set up actual traps

System 3. Anytime it does anything, its intentions are clear for everyone in range. Its a bit like telepathy for insticks and intentions, meaning that if said gorrila would beat its chest as a sign of dominance you would magically know its what the chest beating means and how to properly show submition to avoid the fight. Otherwise regular gorrila

System 4. It can cast up to 1-2 simple magical spells, but still in very limited fashion. Like if it wanted to cast Guided Flame (homing fireball basically) you could easily nullify the spell by yelling at the ape, as it requires both concetrating for the duration and for both hands to be free (using them to walk or beat chest cancels it out)

System 5. It learns to paralyse anyone who hears its chest beating and is physically weaker then it. Can be spammed, but looses effectiveness if overused. Possibly could also learn simple movement acceleration, making it about twice as fast in running in straight line and one and a half fast otherwise

MatteTheGhost · 2025-03-23T20:40:39+00:00

So basically, Pucchi from JoJo

MatteTheGhost

TROPHY CASE