Macguffins And Phlebotinum of Eden

This post will be a bit less formal than my other posts on the setting, and won’t be written in a mostly in-universe manner. Rather, this is part of what will hopefully be some meta-articles on Spirits of Eden. Macguffins and Phlebotinum are pretty important to the average rpg campaign in that they provide interesting elements that can make plot and events happen in visible ways that players can more readily appreciate. Not only this, but Macguffins and Phlebotinum have an otherworldly factor that adds flavor to the game. Spirits of Eden is not devoid of either of these. It is helpful to understand what you can leverage for a story inside the setting.

Essence: Applied Phlebotinum

In the Spirits of Eden, the entirety of the world is permeated by Essence, which is a life force that is given off by mortals, spirits and even animals and plants. The concentration of Essence around a mortal or transcendental being forms an Aura. Everyone has an aura. A small Iomadi child (and for the new reader – a Iomadi is a humanoid with fox ears and a fox tail, looks mostly like a human otherwise, and is the current majority race) has a larger aura than most animals and plants, while a Spirit will have a very large, multicolored aura that might overwhelm someone viewing it. To view an aura, one must have training in some magical form – Clerics and Arcanists have different ways of viewing it.

When one does any kind of magic, or even any extraordinary thing in Eden, it is pretty often powered by the person’s Aura. Spirits are entirely made of Essence, it is their particles and it makes up their flesh like elements of the periodic table make up ours. Arcanists and Clerics have very large auras which they consume as part of the energy feeding spells. Even characters who nominally do not use magic have passive magic in Eden in the form of their aura. The largest and most powerful auras belong to Spirits, who can freeze someone by smothering them with aura, among other tricks.

Anime and Manga have a million names for this sort of thing. Ki, chakra, reiatsu, nen, in Spirits of Eden this is Essence. It’s composition is very poorly understood by the Adelians, who see everything through the lens of mysticism and superstition, but they know how to use it, and for them, this is enough (and it is perhaps better they remain ignorant). Essence lets the Wizards do It, and makes the implausible possible.

One big difference about mortal and spirit auras, however. A mortal can only do magic from the hands, the mouth or the eyes. So gaze magic, hymns or songs (divine magic in Adel, as there’s not much of an arcanist bard tradition at play, though some arcane spells and innate abilities do work through the mouth), and for the arcanist, usually it’s the hands that direct magic, through the use of tools like staves and wands. A spirit, however, can do magic from any part of its aura that it is drawing from for the magic. It can attack with an omni-directional beam, it could shoot a jet of fire from its foot, it could throw a magic missile out of its shoulder. This is cool for flavor text purposes.

Example Uses:

•A very powerful spirit is defeated. Why? Because he or she spent too much Essence.

•A character not typically very powerful creates a very powerful effect but can only do it just this once. Why? Because he or she spent a ton of Essence on it and is now low on it.

•A character is stricken with a horrible wound, but manages to make (albeit slowly) a recovery that’d baffle medical science today. How? Very healthy, persistent aura.

•A character has abilities that only work a few times a day. Why? Because doing any more  would be dangerous or inconvenient to the character’s reserve of Essence.

•A bear is suddenly a very threatening challenge. Why? Well this bear has a really big red aura and you can tell that it means business, Mr. Adventurer. This is a high-level bear.

Everything Was Better Before It Exploded: Macguffins

Almost all the macguffins in the classical sense, from crazy magic rings to the deathly hallows, in Eden would be artifacts concocted by the crazed wizards of the Pre-World. Before the current Spirits of Eden setting, there was a world that was abused and saturated with magic power. Magic controlled everything – nature was killed and its corpse was wielded so that a Wizard’s magical incantation could instantly change the weather, or cause crops to yield, or other incredible magic phenomena. The Last Cataclysm was the outburst of a world throwing off the chains of magical oppression, and this destructive event killed 99% of everyone. The people on Adel now are, basically, a do-over called by the world they stand on. This is why humans and elves are nearly extinct.

Though the Cataclysm reconfigured the land, sea and sky, there exist many, many (as many as you need) chunks of the Pre-World left over. These are populated by aberrations, monsters, mad spirits and the artifacts of the supreme arcanists from before. In Adel, if something is really really really old, it’s also probably got some catastrophic power or another that a group of PCs can butt heads with. That magic ring is an artifact of aberrant power from a now dead world, still serving its fallen master, unaware of circumstance. It does whatever you need it to do, and most importantly, it does not have to follow Adel’s rules. It doesn’t need to have an aura (magic items made by people with Essence have aura, so one can tell they’re magic), it doesn’t need to blow anyone’s Essence to function, it can do precisely whatever you want it to.

However, be aware that everyone in Adel would be hideously afraid of its potential power. They would study it with as much caution as we study rods of uranium. These are people who pray while they reload their primitive firearms, because they believe that there’s a chance they might explode if proper prayer and reverence is not given to the Spirits. Your big bad evil guy who will inevitably come to possess the item is unlikely to use it right away. First he or she has to be sure the item won’t turn him or her into salt.

My God Lives In My Backyard: More Macguffins

Spirits are a very fun bunch of living macguffins. Spirits are the deities of Eden, but they’re also a big part of its ecosystem. Many spirits exist more in the animal world than they do in civilization (though many others live as people do). They have “species” of Spirits just like there are distinct races like lizardfolk, dwarves, iomadi, and so on. Each of these Spirits have purviews that grant them great power and control over certain elements and concepts. While they are extremely unlikely to exert their whole power over these elements (their very composition, and the voice of the world in the back of their heads, prevents this) they can exert enough to be macguffins. Spirits live in villages and act as their guardians. They harass forest travelers. They sell their services in cities.

Many spell effects common to high magic games like D&D don’t actually exist in Adel outside of begging a Spirit for them. There’s no teleport travel – you’ll have to find a Sikara somewhere to take you. There’s no planar travel, so go find a dragon and jump on it’s back, and it may agree to fly you into the heavens. There’s no resurrection, but maybe a Hoitoki can grant you a Wish if you compel its poor naive heart to help you revive your comrade. Depending on the spirit’s purview, personality and power, it can do almost anything you want one minute and then be completely helpless, unwilling or unable the next minute. The erratic, whimsical nature of many spirits makes them perfect for this role. Most spirits are notably humanoid – a fish spirit is a humanoid with fishy scales in places and maybe a fish tail, but it’s not often going to be literally a fish spirit – so they can communicate with the players and they can relate to each other’s physical space more or less evenly. Your big bad evil guy could also be your macguffin all at once.

Spirits have some drawbacks compared to mortals. They are not completely in control of their lives. They don’t notice it, much like a person does not always notice what colors his or her thinking. But for spirits, their purview controls a large part of their personality, in ways that aren’t always easily predictable. While individual spirits within the same purview can be different, one can argue that it is a minor purview that has changed between them. The more overt drawback for the spirit is that he or she is made of Essence. Mortals could cast out of their reserves of blood or fat, suffering harm but still squeezing out fireballs from themselves. A Spirit has only Essence.

There are others, but these are the major elements of use, most deeply tied to Eden.