The Human Race

The next book of the Power of Ten, as requested by the readers, will be ‘urban fantasy’-mode.

Urban fantasy varies from one author to another. My particular inspirations center on Shadowrun (without the cyberpunk super-science aspect), Monster Hunters International, the Dresden Files, the Vampire/Masquerade world, and naturally enough, d20 Modern.

In my experience, Urban Fantasy has several particular features:

Guns against spells, science against magic.

Vampires and werewolves a must. Fey and other supernatural creatures frequent.

“Mystery History” unknown to non-magical creatures.

Frequently ignores real world history and ‘lives within’ the context of its own world.

Ancient cabals, guilds, organizations, and suchlike vying with one another.

Into this mix of features, I’m going to be mixing the Power of Ten ‘reality’.

The Alignments are real. So moral grey is moral grey, and you know it. There really is Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, and it’s not just from someone’s perspective.

Among other things, Undead are always Evil. They may not be cloud cuckoo, but they are negative energy life forms, and they are not nice people.

Likewise, Werefolk are not ‘better-than-humans’. Their power stems from a Curse, and it bends and twists their personalities. Shapechangers in general rapidly lose their humanity.

The phenomenon of Leveling is known and understood. The engineers and scientists have gone to town on it, and know what it is, if not exactly everything it does. The concept of ‘Classes’ is also known, understood, and obvious for the differences between them.

What is known of magic can often be found on the internet (if not actual spell formulae). People aren’t dumb, and will try to find patterns to everything.

To the shock of humanity, its hereditary gods are NOT the real gods. The gods of Power of Ten are the real ones here, regardless what people think. If they are getting spells from elsewhere, it’s not from who they think it is... or it’s something out of Mythos.

This will largely be an E6 world. With magic around, it’s not hard to reach Six, but without it, you’ll be lucky to make Three. Like before, if you don’t have the Stats, you can’t reach a Level (i.e. Stat-10 = Level you can reach. You need a 13 to make Three in the Stat for a Class.)

There are differences between Racial Levels (possessed by most monsters) and Class Levels (= training, and used by humans). In short, monsters are tough, and people are lucky.

There are ‘demi-human’ races, revealed by the exposure of magic. Their existence has forced a lot of changes in society, particularly with their longevity being able to amass immense wealth and power given enough time.

Magic is openly known, people are aware of it, and while magic items are not common, they are understood and not some horrible supernatural surprising thing going to get you hung for blasphemy.

The history of the world has naturally deviated since the revelation of magic, and its blossoming use.

While dropping a prose bomb of a history lesson is certainly possible, I’ll try very, very hard to keep such things fairly short. Making up alternate histories can be fun, and also tiresome.

Meeting with real-world famous people will be highly unlikely. Unlike most alternate realities, this world has changed so much that the disruption of lives makes it unlikely for the same people to receive the same opportunities... and the Powered have many gifts the Primos do not.

Like most such novels, there’s normal folk with guns and tech, and the magical people.

Magical people tend not to be technological savvy, but this is not a universal rule. They are trying to make a technomage Class, of course...

No super-science. Far Future did that. While technomagic can make some rules, tech will be at modern levels.

Sama’s gonna be here, so no time travel shenanigans.

I tend to write intelligent protagonists, who fight smart. If they can curb-stomp someone and it’s the best way to do things, they’ll do it. If there’s too much risk, they’ll play it as smart as you or I would if we were thrown into a lethal situation.

With an E6 world, Resurrection magic is almost unknown, but curing diseases and healing magic is well-known, although it’s not cheap.

As making magic burns precious metals and gemstones, magic items are incredibly expensive, and so broad, low magic is not in place. It will likely take hundreds of years to reach that level. Someone who is geared out like a Level 10 D&D hero is wearing literally tens of millions of dollars worth of Gear. A legendary-class Sword like Excalibur would be priced in the BILLIONS.

I don’t write Good characters and organizations as facetious. If they are Good, they are Good... it’s not something they can use as a cover for nefariousness. They can be misguided, mis-informed, and foolish, but they will not be bad guys using a good rep for cover. The Alignments are real here, so moral grey is readily apparent. ‘Good’ people who are total cads are Neutral in some way or another, not Good.

Good doesn’t mean Nice. Perhaps the thing that defines Good people the most is that they are prepared to sacrifice to help other Good people to varying degrees.

Neutral doesn’t mean uninvolved. It generally means selfish, or uncaring outside of an increasingly close circle. Friends and family are generally the defining circles for Neutrals. Everyone else, pays.

Evil doesn’t mean a butcher, or a murderer. It does mean you’re willing to use people and let them suffer the consequences without really caring about it, even if they die. The more Evil you are, the greater the amount of harm you are willing to let others suffer to get what you want, and the fewer and fewer the people you won’t harm to do it.

I will be reposting the glossary from Power of Ten: Sama Rantha.

The Rules of Power of Ten are in effect for the story:

Spoiler