Five Earths, All in a Row Symbol Magic

Setting framework as laid out by the creator, Prince Charon.
Symbol magic (such as this Rune Magic thread, or the aforementioned GURPS versions) is most often used to amplify Path/Book rituals, although it can be used effectively on its own. Each copy of a specific rune or other mystical symbol, even one just drawn in the air with a finger or wand, is connected to the spirit of that symbol, to varying degrees. Thus, every Eiwaz rune is connected to the spirit of 'the Rune Eiwaz', every Page of Swords card is connected to the spirit called 'the Page of Swords', and so forth. Some symbols have temporary or permanent thoughtforms bound to them, greatly increasing that connection (to the point that spellcasting with charm or fetish-runes takes at most seconds, instead of minutes). There generally aren't all that many Symbol styles, although each of the four new Earths has working Futhark and Ogham styles, and both Steampunk and Dieselpunk Earths have Tarot styles (Tarot cards weren't of much interest to mystics before the 18th century in OTL, and thus neither Fantasy nor Clockpunk Earth would use them). Symbol wizards are rather more common, mainly among adventurers, but they tend to use well-known symbols (and becoming well-known takes time), as otherwise the spirits of those symbols don't have enough power to be useful.
Having fetish or charm tokens (as opposed to a fetish or charm bearing several symbols for a specific effect) is equivalent to having True Symbol Tokens in the usual Symbol magic system, save that the cost is in additional skill penalties, rather than fatigue (and the fact that charm tokens only work once each). Without them, casting is done as with Path/Book magic (i.e., you either need the right amount of time (generally ten minutes per symbol), the proper ritual space, and some fitting material components, or you need levels of Path/Book Adept) but with the skill rolls for Symbol magic.
Magical materials are those which naturally have thoughtforms anchored to them (generally due to long belief, or for some organic materials, the life form it came from being psychic), allowing various effects without the need to cast a spell. These thought forms subdivide when the material does, and merge when properly brought together, allowing new effects. Natural magical materials are rare to non-existent on Steampunk Earth, Clockpunk Earth, and our Earth, somewhat uncommon on Dieselpunk Earth, and very common on Fantasy Earth (a fair amount of various magical materials, as well as plants and animals, from both Middle Earth and Abier-Toril can be found on the latter). Some materials, such as silver and iron, are not magical themselves, but affect spirits and other magical creatures and people, due to the legends about those spirits.
Psi powers: astral projection, ergokinesis (like psychokinesis, but manipulating the electromagnetic force (light, magnetism, electricity), and possibly other types of energy), extrasensory perception, meta-psi (ability to disrupt, enhance, or otherwise modifiy other psi powers; includes standard GURPS anti-psi power, if you're wondering), probability alteration, psychic healing (which is very rarely instantaneous, just faster than normal to varying degrees - although you can fake instant healing by psychokinetically holding the wound(s) together as a semi-superior substitute for stitches or staples, and then using telepathy to quiet the pain, and still use psychic healing to make the wound heal faster), psychic vampirism, psychokinesis, telepathy, and teleportation (which seems to involves warping space, and manipulating wormholes - bags of holding exist on Fantasy Earth, though they aren't terribly common). If you have access to a copy of GURPS Psionic Powers, biokinesis and psychometabolism fall under psychic healing (and any of those names might be used, depending on who's speaking), animal telepathy falls under telepathy, and dream control is a mix of telepathy and astral projection.
If you can plausibly explain something using the above psi powers, chances are, you can do it, although it may be massively impractical. In theory, for example, you could warp space enough to make a prince appear to have the size and shape of a frog, but then you'd have to correct for his mass, strength, reflexes being all wrong, human dietary needs, respiration, pigmentation... Really, the amount of math, skill, information, precision, and concentration involved would be beyond most spirits, and even some gods would find it difficult, despite their greater processing power. Much less difficult (though still not 'easy') to pop the prince's real body into suspended animation, possibly in a pocket dimension made from the neck of a wormhole (note that there are always two entrances), and then either make him possess an existing frog (whether through pure telepathy, or forced astral projection + telepathy), or stick his astral body into an ectoplasmic shell in the form of a frog.
Since I'm sure someone will ask: sticking one warped space into another warped space just means making more work for the thoughtforms maintaining the warps, and if they can't or won't do the work, they'll either not allow the warped spaces together, or they'll collapse the spaces and dump whatever they contained out... or they may do some other thing, like attack you for making them work too hard. Better check with the spirits before you try something like that. Sticking one wormhole through another wormhole just relocates the mouth or mouths of the wormhole. Likewise for sticking a wormhole into a warped space. Sticking a warped space into a wormhole is pretty much like sticking a warped space into another warped space, though. Interestingly, wormholes tend not to cross into other dimensions, unless both mouths are anchored to or contained within the same structure. If you try, then either the structure that only one mouth is connected to will pass into the other dimension, but find it's wormhole-mouth absent, or if the mouth is more tightly bound, the structure it's bound to will fail to cross into the other dimension. Also, the farther apart the mouths of a wormhole are when you start stabilizing it, the harder it is to make it stable and transitionable, though once it is, distance is no longer a factor.
Time travel does not appear to be possible (other than by visiting another dimension, which may be how the young Kal'El met the Legion, if he did at all), but you can fake it by astrally projecting into humanity's memory of the past (or predictions of the future), possibly sticking your real body into a space warp or pocket dimension as described above ('Well, aren't you going to say that it's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? Everybody else does.'). Nothing you do will actually change the past, but large efforts (nuking Rome in 450 BCE, for example) may cause confusion for a while, or even severe trauma, in some people - the latter, mostly in relatively recent changes, which could result in people currently alive having contradictory memories (like, say, remembering you died, when you clearly didn't). Physical changes to the present aren't going to happen just by altering the memory of the past. In most cases, all you'll do is cause increased activity on alternate history discussion boards
Category:Setting Concepts
Category:Five Earths