magic stuff for Neverwood
Breathers and Binders
Callers and Finders
Workers and Sinkers
Slingers and Drinkers
Sinners, believers,
Witches and grievers
Squanderers, keepers,
Sowers and reapers
Soldiers, seekers,
Writers and speakers
Killers, protectors,
Goblins and spectres
By sun and by night,
By scent and by sight,
By heart and by rote,
By the Word that he spoke,
By bullet and blade,
By flower and flame
The blame and the blood
and the knife that it stains
The light may be gone,
But the candle remains.
The Lore of the Forces
Only the witches know this, and what they know is imperfectly known, but a piece of the truth. Perhaps the whole truth was known at one time, and perhaps not. This is the best we have now.
The Neverwood and surrounding lands are governed by fourteen known active Forces: Sun, Night, Flame, Rain, River, Storm, Dust, Frost, Root, Rust, Bone, Blood, Spark, and Ghost. There may be other Forces, out there in other lands, or perhaps sleeping in this one, but these fifteen are all that are known.
They are not always discrete things; their domains can overlap. Sometimes they work in tandem; Bone and Dust can work together to form fertile loams, while Flame and River can work together to power steam engines. Sometimes they work against each other; Sun can dry up Rain, while River can extinguish Flame.
Some favor and serve man, while others despise and torment man. Others are ambivalent or capricious, swinging from one side of the fence to the other on a whim. All have a deadly and fearsome aspect that may rear its head when not respected.
Where they come from is beyond the ken of all. We only know them through the power and signs they make manifest in our world.
Here’s how I’d extrapolate the Forces, but you can play around with it if you want. Rain includes rains, fogs, and mists, but hail is reserved for Storm. All groundwater, running or standing, is River. Bone is for animals and tissues that are dead, Blood for those that are alive. Bone gets the rotting of flesh, but all other decay is Rust. Storm gets lightning, but all other electricity is Spark. Ghost includes not only spirits and phantoms, but also memories. Sun gets sunlight, but candlelight, firelight, and gaslight are Flame. As for the wind: gales and tornadoes are Storm; sandstorms are Dust; blizzards are Frost; the winds that create blazes are Flame; the wind that makes waves is River; the humid, oppressive breeze is Rain; the dry, warm breeze is Sun.
You might note the absence of stone or metal. This is because they do not have an active presence, because they don’t do things on their own.
The Touched
Sometimes the Forces touch a man and leave a mark on him. This mark brings power and authority of some kind within that Force’s domain. One man may be touched many times by many Forces, or none at all. No one knows why some folks get the touch and some don’t. Witches strive and fast and quest and sacrifice to be touched, and some people get it for no apparent reason.
Most folks who are touched don’t even know. Without mystical rites (the witches know them), the power comes only unbidden, and it’s most usually very subtle, less’n the touched man’s life depends on it, or he’s in the most powerful of humors. There’s been more than a few folk marked as Flameslingers who didn’t find out until they lost their temper and caught some poor sonuvabitch on fire with their bare hands.
Those who are touched and show it are regarded as witches by the common folk. The witches know better, but there ain’t much of anybody else that does. If the accusers knew how likely it was that they themselves were touched and just hadn’t found out yet, they might think a little differently, but they don’t. And sometimes people are accused of being touched when there’s no real evidence of it, except that something is going wrong, and someone’s gotta answer for it. Woebetide the man branded as a Rainsinker in times of drought, even if he isn’t one, and even if there ain’t one around at all.
Each touch marks a man as one of eight things: a Breather, a Binder, a Caller, a Finder, a Worker, a Sinker, a Slinger, or a Drinker.
Breathers can breathe in the Force, walk in it, swim through it; they make it home, and make themselves untouchable by it. A Sunbreather can bear the sun’s heat and hate with relative impunity; when others fall with sunstroke, he will go on. A Flamebreather can inhale fire, hold it in the palm of his hand, sleep in it, and remain unburned.
Binders lay hold of the power and lock it into things, bestowing its virtue. Bind Flame to a bullet, and it will burn where it hits. Bind Rust to a building, and it will gradually, implacably decay and crumble to ruin.
Callers speak the Force’s name in its native tongue and produce it from nothing. The Caller cannot summon it with any particular accuracy or precision; it will merely appear in his vicinity. A Rootcaller can summon a tree to grow up through the floor of a house. A Stormcaller can change a clear sky to one roiling with angry clouds.
Finders can sense the Force. They may hear it, smell it, feel it, see it, or taste it, but they can tell when it’s around, and when it’s moving. The adept can even read it, understand its motions and patterns, map it. A Riverfinder can detect underground springs or predict floods. A Rustfinder can sense and pinpoint decayed and corrupted materials in a machine, or anticipate the collapse of a ruined structure.
Workers take the raw Force and shape it, build with it. A Rootworker can distill the virtues of herbs into potent medicines or poisons, or make wooden devices of great craft and beauty. A Boneworker can animate the dead, or shape their remains into strange objects of eerie power.
Sinkers ward the Force, abjure it, dispel it from their vicinity. The adepts can control this, turn it on or off, but for others it is unconscious and sometimes constant. A Nightsinker can dispel the deceptions of darkness. A Ghostsinker can exorcise spirits or silence memories.
Slingers wield the Force as a weapon. Adepts can do this even over distances, as long as they know where their victim is. A Stormslinger can swing a gale like a sword, or even direct lightning or a tornado with murderous intent. A Bloodslinger can cause blood to boil and perhaps even hearts to burst, or turn beasts into mindless weapons.
Drinkers consume the Force and carry it around with them. This can be involuntary for the untrained, and thus dangerous after a time unless they can also Breathe it. Drinking is useful for both absorbing Force and for storing it. The release of the Force, however, is uncontrolled without Binding, Working, or Slinging. A Sparkdrinker can store electricity like a battery. A Frostdrinker can swallow the cold from a block of ice, leaving only lukewarm water.