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TROS in the Hammer:Magic Spirits
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==Limits on Spirit Power== There are a number of limits to the power of spirits. First, there are some things that are simply impossible: * Matter cannot be created from nothing. A semblance of matter can be created using os, but it is illusory and will dissappear as soon as the effect is no longer maintained. Otherwise, existing material has to be used. Air will work in a pinch, but air is so diffuse it takes a large volume of it to create anything significant. * Matter cannot be destroyed. It can change form, be separated, moved around, altered considerably, but cannot be destroyed. An example: a spirt could "disintegrate" a target, but the substance of the target is not destroyed. It might be spread out in a thin layer all over the room, but its still there. * Because matter cannot be created or destroyed, teleportation of any variety is impossible. For matter to go from one place to another, it has to go through the intervening space. * Time cannot be reversed, slowed down, or sped up. The ''perception'' of time by conscious beings can be messed about with, but time itself is immutable. * Elements cannot be converted. This is far easier to explain from a scientific paradigm; essentially, atoms cannot change form. They can be recombined at the atomic level into new compounds, but you cannot, for example, create gold from lead. This means that objects made from air (as an example) will tend to be fairly simple, composed of various hydrocarbons and oxides. There are also a number of functional limits, which make things very difficult, although not necessarily completely impossible. They primarily take the form of maintanence times, where a particular effect will need to be maintained in order for its full effect to come about. * Memories take time to create and/or erase. See the effect level section for more details. * Disintegrating matter (i.e. simply tearing it apart) is quite quick; any destructive effect of this sort must be maintained for a number of seconds equal to the mass of material in lbs being disintegrated divided by 100. If the resulting time is 2 seconds or less, the spell is instantaneous. So, your average human being can be smeared into goo as an instant spell, but demolishing a castle wall is going to take time. * Non-living, relatively homogenous objects take time to create. In general, any effect which is creating an object from available matter will have to be maintained at least its own mass in lbs divided by 10 in seconds. This means that objects of 20 lbs or less mass can be created as instantaneous effects; all others will need to be maintained. * More complicated forms of matter (for example, a fine steel blade) takes more time to create; assume that it takes anywhere from its own mass in seconds to its mass times 100 in seconds for very complicated substances. The 100 times mark also applies to items that are intended to at least mimic something that was once alive, like most food stuffs. An object that looks and tastes remarkably like a 2 lb cooked sirloin steak can be created in 200 seconds (3 minutes), but that object isn't actually a cooked sirloin steak. * Life, while not ''impossible'' to create from scratch, is incredible difficult to create because of its complexity. Assume that, for any life form, creating it from scratch requires an amount of time equal to its mass in lbs * 1000 in minutes. Therefore, a small dog (10 lbs) can be created (from appropriate matter), but it will take 10,000 minutes (167 hours, or 7 days) of solid maintanence to do so. This is obviously faster than raising a dog from a puppy, but its still not quick. This same rules apply to any kind of non-damaging manipulation that creates or removes significant mass in a living creature. As an example, let us say you want to restore an arm to an amputee. A persons arm weighs roughly the same 10 lbs as the small dog, above, and therefore would take the same 7 days to regrow. * It seems like it should be technically possible to restore a dead person to life, or create an exact duplicate of a person. There are problems with this...big problems. If it comes up in play, I'll deal with it then, but to save space I will just say big problems. *Moving objects around is a common effect, but there are limits to the acceleration that can be placed upon objects, related to the amount of force that can be applied. In general, small objects can be accelerated much more rapidly than larger ones. Rather than try to present formulas, here are some examples: **An object the size of a pebble or arrow can be accelerated very rapidly and stopped just as rapidly. This also means that arrows, sling stones, etc., can be halted in their flight or sped to dangerous speed as an instantaneous spell. **An object the size of a human being can be accelerated at a slower rate; roughly human running speed per round (2 seconds). This means that a running human can be halted in his tracks in one round, and a charging horse in two or three. **A boulder size object can be accelerated slower still, taking a number of rounds to get up any rate of speed. As a general rule, however, created something from scratch will always take longer than moving existing materials around to make something. So, for example, building a stone wall out of existing stones using movement effects would take less time than creating a stone wall from scratch out of dirt and air. *Note also that moving objects endure any of the problems associated with their movement. So, you might be able to move at 60 mph, but if you are moving through a forest can you dodge the trees fast enough?
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