Beyond Destination

Magic · Cosmic power · Psychic power. Every other kind of power falls under one or more of these.

• Psychic power is tied to the Mind.
• Magic draws its power from the Spiritual plane.
• Cosmic power is not tied to any plane. It is a specific exception written into the rules of reality — reality makes it happen, even when nothing can explain how.

All three can produce the same effect, but they are separate channels. A cosmic fireball is not magic. A reality without magic blocks only magic.

Classification is per ability. One fireball ability might run on a single force; another might run on several.

At the table, all three work the same way.

Divine is a higher order of the spiritual and magical, above regular magic. It is a tier, not a fourth kind of power. Ordinary magical analysis can fail to see a divine layer.

Below the three kinds sit positive and negative expressions of power. Positive creates, adds and sustains. Negative destroys, subtracts, and brings things to an end.

Polarity is not morality. Negative is not evil. Ending things is one of reality's most important functions.

Below polarity sits every concept a force can be tied to. Justice is a force — and Injustice is its own separate force, not just the negative of justice. Any concept force can be tapped as a power.

A complete concept is enough to be a force. Reflection, for example, is a force in its own right, sitting between the elemental and the somatic.

New forces get named when someone needs them.

An effect is separate from the force that causes it. Any effect can be combined with any force, in any number. There is no table of legal combinations. The only requirement is a narrative reason it works — usually Reason or Rhyme.

Put your creativity into the specific thing — this spell, this creature — not into the category.

A concept can become a power source through its associations. Justice is linked with correcting wrongs, and wrongs are often linked with sins, so a force of justice can gain an edge against forces tied to sins.

That edge is situational, not a counter. Using justice for reasons that are not valid can backfire, boosting the other side. Drawing on a sin-named force does not make you a sinner or give you extra power. And what a community believes is just changes how strong these effects are.

The practical law: you use the concepts of the forces against each other to gain an advantage. A poet — someone fluent in metaphor — has a great advantage in versatility.

But the ground itself can be argued. Frame a contest so the forces fall back on reason and plain physics, and the logical thinker has the advantage instead. This is order against chaos at the level of a single fight. Whoever makes the stronger opening argument controls the narrative.

An action can carry an effect, because actions carry meaning — who does it, what they are, and the situation. This is not only a magic thing; it works across the forces.

Every power costs something. With magic, if you cannot see what energy is being spent, some energy somewhere is still being spent. Costs can be hard: life force burned for power, or years of lifespan — for an immortal, bringing the moment they stop existing closer.

Creating something from nothing is possible. It is paid for, not forbidden.

Gravity is a dangerous and difficult force to call on.

A connection to a complex force — one that holds many different forces inside it — helps you use any of the forces it holds. It does not give you access to them. The connection is real, but it is diluted across everything the complex force contains.

A strong link to Primal Nature, for example, helps with Primal Fire, which technically falls inside it. It does not unlock Primal Fire.

Things inside a reality almost never touch the primal forms of forces. Primal access implies ties outside the reality, and those ties have to be stated.