Doomsayers, wielders of Decay
Decay Spells Overview
Decay Spells Overview
Doomsayers, wielders of Decay
Overview:
True death remains elusive for many as the Stiffs harness the energy of the recently deceased to empower their prison reality. Those who perish within Nihil are at risk of either being painfully churned into fuel or becoming rendered spirits, corrupted fragments of themselves cursed to wander eternally through the magical infrastructure of Nihil known as the Wired.
Yet every process must come to an end Ciphers who choose to embrace this truth wield Decay magic to terminate artificial and biological forms of life. They may exploit the weaknesses of their opponents through malicious subroutines or even possess the ability to reanimate lifeforms with temporary consciousness thanks to an intimate proximity to the concepts of death and entropy. Some have mastered the art of corruption of spaces and districts, while others attune themselves to death to detect and manipulate its presence upon lifeforms.
Ciphers who study Decay often find themselves interacting with spirits to peer past the veil of death for grim and powerful knowledge. Some choose to aid these spirits in their search for true death and respite, while others to conspire with vengeful spirits who seek to wage war against the Stiffs from within the Wired. Terminal Apparitions are pervious Ciphers who have succumbed to death, but have not departed from the prison of Nihil. There is strength in collaboration, though tales of woeful mistrust leading to bloody endings are not unheard of in the Wired.
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Ego Injectors, wielders of Cognition
Cognition Spells Overview
Cognition Spells Overview
Cognition
Overview
All thoughts exist as expressions within the confines of the Stiffs’ corrupted creation, and Ciphers that study Cognitive magic can disrupt the flow of communication that exists between all constructs that toil within Nihil. As minds are molded into being made unaware of the magic around them and indoctrinated into the hopeless labor of the Stiffs’ reality, Ciphers that wield Cognitive magic break these constraints through mental introspection and inner reflection.
By casting spells of this Protocol, Ciphers are able to perceive the auras of emotions and thoughts around them. Some are even capable of tapping the minds of conscious beings around them, perceiving their memories with the same sensory levels of the original experience. Other Ciphers may harness the capacity of external minds to leech knowledge or run separate queries of thought within the minds of the lifeforms around them.
Many Cognitive spellcasters believe that the unlimited prowess of the mind can transform the world into a place of peace and inter-subjectivity. Through perception and reflection the individual may break free of the crumbling processes embedded into their actions from faulty memory and mental manipulation. Existence is generated through beholding the external world, and the Ciphers that harness Cognitive magic aim to puncture the Stiffs’ veil to awaken the collective minds of humanity.
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Inspectors, wielders of Spatial
Spatial Spells Overview
Spatial Spells Overview
Inspectors, wielders of Spatial
Overview:
All that exists within Nihil is woven within the an unimaginable collection of containers, a series of interconnected points between a sea of processes, and Spatial spells allow Ciphers to traverse through these waves of invocations to arrive anywhere they chose to be. Imprisonment and isolation wielded by the Stiffs and their enforcers as deterrence to rebellion are subverted by the constant jailbreaks and hit and run tactics employed by those wielding Spatial spells.
With this magic the Cipher folds space around them to travel around the world in a single step. Some are capable of extending their own senses and control of their surroundings to listen into distant locations or to walk through a gunfight without crossing the trajectory of a single bullet. Though the most vexing threat these spellcasters pose to the Stiffs is the ability to create pockets of Nowhere, spaces that are imperceptible to those within Nihil. As the Stiff’s and Shill’s power rely upon existing in their reality, Nowhere is the one place they cannot enter.
Spatial spellcasters are travelers capable of transporting themselves and others exactly where the Stiffs don’t want them to be. They act as spies and information couriers, facilitating conversations across a universal battlefield of united Awakened. The Stiffs fight to keep their thrones in a battlefield existing everywhere and Nowhere thanks to the magic and espionage of bestowed through using Spatial magic.
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Disk Jockeys, wielders of Sequence
Sequence Spells Overview
Sequence Spells Overview
Disc Jockeys, Wielders of Sequence
Overview:
What may appear to be a series of unrelated tragedies and blessings hides the weavers of patterns and fate. Ciphers harnessing the power or Sequence magic intuitively know the cause and effect that drives events to happen. With this knowledge they can bend these effects to create their desired outcomes. While the Stiffs use this layer of interconnected fates for oppression, Ciphers studying this Protocol seek to shape these mystic threads to bring about a Zero Day to permanently end the perpetual loop of Nihil.
With Sequence magic Ciphers may bestow blessings of good fortune and shift the odds in the favor of their allies. They also are equally capable of spinning destiny to ensnare their foes in deadly misfortune and woe. Some believe deeply in concepts of destiny and fate, admiring the ever changing ripples across its vast web of connections. Other groups of Ciphers wielding Sequence magic choose to bend the linkages between odds and chance, breaking apart the sequence of events in every moment to defiantly oppose the Stiffs’ attempts to restrict self-determination.
Sequence magic perceive the ties that bind every action within Nihil, and with the slightest touch they seek to ensure eternal freedom and possibility with the confidence that comes from inescapable probability.
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Pointers, wielders of Time
Time Spells Overview
Time Spells Overview
Pointers, wielders of Time
Overview:
Everything that is yet to be lies in a linear progression according to the cruel whims of the Stiffs. Yet this flow is malleable by design, and through a mastery of chaining events together seamlessly with Time spells Ciphers may shift the flow of time in their favor. Nothing is truly fixed in place within the events transpiring within Nihil, since everything is in a perpetual stasis. Cipher’s studying Time seek to manipulate the pacing of what has come before and what was meant to occur ahead.
Spellcasters of the the Time Protocol may exert control to shift the future into the most advantageous outcome, while those with even greater mastery may incrementally bend the past to undue the injustices dealt by the Stiffs’ choke hold on timelines. Some may possess the ability shuffle events into inexplicable occurrence, leading to events of unimaginable devastation or celebration with the simple folding of casualty, like disasters brought by the fluttering wings of butterflies in flight.
While the Stiffs cling to their fragile eternity, Ciphers wielding Time spells seek to unwind the occurrence of events across reality to unmake the foresworn lich rulers and recreate the universe into an everlasting bliss for every moment spent endured suffering across the history of Nihil.
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Source Coders, wielders of Creation
Creation Spells Overview
Creation Spells Overview
Source Coders, wielders of Creation
Overview:
There burns an invisible fire within Nihil, and it is in the pulse of this heat that all magic is born. Ciphers that possess knowledge of Creation spells hold themselves as vessels to this imperceptible wave of fiery inspiration. This power of shaping the multitude of conditions and rules behind the creation and interaction of all magic in Nihil was once known only by the Stiffs, the original authors of every instance of their cursed existence. But much to the chagrin of the Stiffs, this magic of making and unmaking is now also in service to the collective of artists and poets that claim the power of Creation magic as their own.
Ciphers possessing knowledge of Creation magic can create constructs of pure magic to act as proxies of their own existence and repository of mana. These proxies soon transform into familiars, lifeforms that are connected to the Cipher’s pool of magic, but are their own beings with a distinct and unique awareness of the reality around them. Many act as guardians, advisors, and lifelong companions to the Cipher they are first connected with, but it is not unheard of for familiars to drift apart from Ciphers or connect across multiple Ciphers over time. Ciphers who wield Creation magic are also capable of draining the magic from the mundane creations around them to invigorate their own powers or dispel magic that is wielded against them.
The vivid magics and expressive lives of Creation spellcasters stand in sharp contrast to the reductive conditions demanded by the Stiffs. Through careful design and conjuration the Ciphers using Creation magic strive to instill hope in their allies and wield a power that burns imperceptibly but brightly within the hearts of every Awakened and Dreamers in Nihil.
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Terminal Apparitions, wielders of Void
Void Spells Overview
Void Spells Overview
Terminal Apparitions, wielders of Void
Overview
When the collision of two opposing incantations of magic occurs there is always a risk of creating an Anomaly in reality. These schisms in manifesting mana cause instability in the rendering of existence, often creating deadly consequences for the unlucky spellcasters caught within its influence. Even the Stiffs must be weary of weaving magic of great magnitude into their prison reality, as the risk for catastrophe is much higher when attempting to change so many multitudes of interlocking processes and constructs.
Yet this is the true power that Void spellcasters cherish and revel in. By flinging confluxes of broken reality as weapons with little risk to themselves, they shred all that manifests as obstacles in their ambitions. The Void spares many of risks when the conduits of its power are themselves already dead.
There are the two requirements for choosing spells from the Void Protocol:
- The Cipher must have died, either by failing a Cheat Death roll in a session or by creating a character who has already experienced death prior to the beginning of the story.
- Once a Cipher dies and becomes a spirit, they cannot cast spells from any other Protocol. The Cipher’s magic forever changes once they become a spirit and cannot be restored.
There are benefits to shedding a corporeal form however, such as:
- The deceased Cipher may move in any direction and through solid objects as a benefit of losing their original corporal form.
While many mages do everything they can to minimize the risk of an Anomaly occurring when casting spells, Void spellcasters embrace this distortion as an inherit risk within their spellcraft. Their spirits tethered only faintly to the reality around them, they can create unbearable environments or inconceivable harm without risking their own injury. These Ciphers obtain the ability to distort magic in all its forms, but at the cost of being able to cast spells from any other spellcasting Protocol.
By wielding the power of antinomy, Void spells can sabotage another lifeform’s spells, cause chaos and confusion at an unpredictable scale, and enter realms inaccessible to the living. Others claim to have found beings within the farthest breaches beyond observable reality, a space filled with doomed timelines and whispers from worlds seemingly beyond the prison of Nihil. Spellcasters of this Protocol seek to invert the very essence of magic in Nihil in order to create distorted realities from fragments and torn asunder logic. It is with deftness and reckless abandon that these Ciphers split apart the reality of the Stiffs as revenge for their untimely demise.
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Type Enforcers, wielders of Formation
Formation Spells Overview
Formation Spells Overview
Type Enforcers, wielders of Formation
Overview:
Every thing and every person can be bought, as the Stiffs enforce scarcity to fuel desperation and compliance within their flawed reality. With the exception of a few wealthy elites chosen to serve the Stiffs, the majority of the population struggles to survive despite the prosperity of the corporations they toil under.
Cipher’s who wield Formation spells seek to bring balance to the world by striking at its material structure and innate dynamics. Every bit and byte is malleable, and the these Cipher’s wield spells to reconstruct reality in opposition to its creators’ malicious intent. They may conjure entire objects from seemingly thin air or set objects ablaze with a glare. Some choose to become artisans, sculpting steel as if it were clay while others choose to wield the forces of animated matter to make the world move and transform as they please.
By harnessing the raw energy of Nihil as a weapon, Formation spellcasters take a stand against any who would threaten prosperity with serfdom or rebellion with shackles.
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