Flax
From Grigbertz
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Flax is the name given to the reality-manipulating powers of the Serpent People in the Dino Girls campaign. These work by "skipping" from one alternate reality to the next, incorporating elements from parallel realities. It obeys some of the rules of physics, such as the conservation of matter and energy.
Flax is a kind of luck or probability potential. Sentient creatures have the ability to pick and choose between different possible futures based on quantum observations of the future. Choosing favorable outcomes consumes Flax, suffering misfortune accumulates flax. For the average human, these two effects cancel each other out in a lifetime. Wearing a Flax Focus allows the accumulation and amplification of Flax energies, allowing the selection of a far wider array of possible outcomes.
Personal setbacks and frustration causes the jewelry to activate, accumulating Flax potential. This causes the user to be bound, a physical reminder and tether for the flax energy. Once activated, the wearer can use the flax of the hard gold jewelry to alter reality in ways disproportionate to the setbacks suffered.
Powers
Flax powers cannot create something out of nothing. They cannot use most summon powers, and create powers transform rather than create matter. But there is usually quite enough ambient energies and waste matter lying about for this not to be a problem.
Certain things simply do not exist in the Dino Girls universe, such as immaterial spirits. Powers that rely on such agencies either fail or need a different explanation.
There are two basic kinds of power users in Dino Girls - scientific users and intuitive. Intuitive power-users are restricted to one particular skill and can only use powers related to that one skill. Scientific power-users are restricted to one or more Forms, and must have an Expert schtick related to each form they choose. Because Flax is the only tradition in Dino Girls, these restrictions do not count as Limitations.
Origin
Flax is powered by the Chi origin. It is a matter of inner harmony projected on the outside world.
Flux Focus Jewelry
The Flux Focus items have powers of their own.
- They sustain the wearer as Animal Adaption
- They provide damage resistance to Concussion and Impact energy, and further points can be invested to expand this protection to other areas. This works like Resist Concussion and related powers.
- They sustain pregnancies, helping the wearer to carry lizardfolk eggs to term and using flax powers (generally if the wearer's form or skill) to prevent abortion. They also induce a state of slight euphoria, making the wearer happier, more tractable and open to suggestion.
- As a Limit Break, you can add your Mind to the result of a stunt, as long as that stunt is mundane and relates to the use of a skill or form you can use powers from.
Methods
Bane
This is an optional method for Flax.
Costume
This is an obligatory method for Flax. You must be wearing at least a Flax Focus collar in order to use flax powers. In addition, depending on what skill the power is tied to, there are other requirements as well.
- Charm - Bound Arms needs arm cuffs and prevent most physical manipulation and the use of weapons and implements. You can still use a Tiny ranged weapon.
- Create - Immobilized, stuck to something, alternatively on a short leash which prevents movement beyond one or two meters. If you are stuck to a creature whose Body is greater than yours, you are forced along as it moves, otherwise you are both immobilized unless you cooperate.
- Impress - Bound Legs needs leg cuffs and makes you unable to stand unsupported, which prevents and hinders many actions as determined by the situation and stunt description. Your Move is reduced to 1.
- Know - Bound Arms needs arm cuffs and prevent most physical manipulation and the use of weapons and implements. You can still use a Tiny ranged weapon.
- Maneuver - You must be nude.
- Melee - You must be nude.
- Ride - Bound Legs you fall prone and cannot stand unsupported, which prevents and hinders many actions as determined by the situation and stunt description. Your Move is reduced to 1.
- Shoot - Bound Arms prevent most physical manipulation and the use of weapons and implements. You can still use a Tiny ranged weapon.
- Spot - Blindfolding restricts your awareness, giving you only a rough estimate of objects and creatures in a diameter equal to your Mind; you are insensitive to things beyond this range.
Echoes
This is an obligatory method for Flax. Whenever a Flax user suffers a setback of some kind, an emotional reversal, fails to use a power, or is otherwise frustrated, her flax focus jewelry activates, storing the flax potential and restraining her. The chance that this will happen increases if the setback was unexpected; something that was known to be impossible or an expected negative result will not trigger an accumulation of Flax.
Depending in what triggered the accumulation of Flax you will be restrained in a different fashion; see the Costume method above for what skills and powers relate to what kind of restraint.
The restraint is released when the flax energy is expended, either after a prodigious use of powers or when the wearer is satisfied and sated, both physically, emotionally, and intellectually. This usually happens at the end of a session.
Loss of Control
This is an optional method for Flax.
Power Explosion
This is an optional method for Flax.
Power Misfire
This is an optional method for Flax.
Power Reserve
This is an optional method for Flax.
Power Signature
This is an optional method for Flax.
Power Words
This is an optional method for Flax.
Restraint
This is an optional method for Flax. If the focus roll fails, you get bound as indicated by the roll.
Tantrism
This is an optional method for Flax.
Trance
This is an optional method for Flax.
