Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine - Affliction Scope

[solidork]

I recently started reading Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine and I am really digging it. I've been thinking about how I would build my favorite characters in this system, and I'm a little stuck on what is a 'reasonable' affliction, particularly for Mortal characters. Does anyone have examples of afflictions that they have used?

Here is one I've been thinking about: "If one of my friends enters a kitchen looking for comfort food, I must already be there and just about to pull their favorite pie out of the oven."

This seems way too specific compared to the handful of example afflictions. Are you supposed to hammer out the limitations in more detail in the writeup, or leave it somewhat vague? It is also pretty gonzo (especially for a mortal character). There is a similar miracle in the back, but it is an Arc 3+ imperial miracle.

Maybe this version is better? "I must be able to comfort my friends with pie." This one could theoretically let you bake from beyond the grave or teleport you across the world, but it seems like it would usually just retroactively create a pie if the character can't be on hand. I guess it also guarantees that the character is comforted by the pie unless some kind of miracle blocks it?

[Friv]

This won't be a really helpful answer, but it depends.

Afflictions are, fairly deliberately, one of the vaguest bits of the game. I think that's in large part because you want them to mesh with the tone of whatever style of game you're running. If your mortal-level game includes a lot of weird shenanigans, or is playing in the Techno genre, say, that first Affliction would be fine. On the other hand, my group played a Wild West mortal-level tabletop with old gods and weak magic, and yeah, it would have been immersion-breaking.

Generally, I would lean towards the second Affliction; it's a bit more far-reaching, and as you noted, less prone to strange, immersion-breaking moments. Maybe you're dead, but you signed your friends up for a post-mortem "Pie of the Month" club! They can have delicious pies in your memory, and be comforted when they think of their loss.

[Zale]

The second one feels kind of like a Bond, really. I can totally see someone breaking through an Auctoritas because the laws of PASTRY BASED FRIENDSHIP DEMAND IT!

Afflictions tend to be affirmations of your cosmic destiny.

Your first example is really detailed and painfully specific. It's not that it doesn't work, but it seems really niche.

Going, "I always have a freshly baked pie!" or "I'm always baking in the kitchen when my friends are there." seem fine also.

Your second example has the consequence that your pies are always comforting. As in, the fate of the universe is such that your pies always cause comfort.

They don't even technically have to be complete sentences. You could just write, "Affliction: Werewolf." and as long as everyone else understands the context that's perfectly fine.

I've written vague afflictions like "The waves love and adore me." What does that do? Whatever involves waves and them loving you, I suppose. Mostly involves them chasing you down or causing huge waves on a beach or whatever.


Tl;dr:

Basically, the scope of afflictions really depends on what other players are doing; and, in general should be thematically coherent. The game mentions this when it talks about skills. If everyone is fine with you always being there when people are feeling lonely with a freshly baked pie, then it's perfectly fine.

I wouldn't object to someone just happening to be there whenever that niche situation happened. Half the miraculous arcs get it as a free arc 0 perk.

[Yuki Akuma]

...Maaan, why did you have to remind me that Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine exists?

Now I have to be all disappointed all of my RPG friends only play normal RPGs. :smallfrown:

[Lord Raziere]

Agree with Yuki on the reminding thing.

Now I have to be all reminded of how hard Chuubos is to understand >_<.

I like Jenna's works, but its like trying to read something written by a Fae. I feel I only understand it if I forget all common sense and go full whimsy mode.

[JBPuffin]

Agree with Yuki on the reminding thing.

Now I have to be all reminded of how hard Chuubos is to understand >_<.

I like Jenna's works, but its like trying to read something written by a Fae. I feel I only understand it if I forget all common sense and go full whimsy mode.

I've played Nobilis (with, admittedly, some suitably-crazy people) and made quite a few characters, but I honestly haven't even made one Chuubo's character. There's something about the change in mechanics - the whole "Arc" system - that throws me off. Have you tried reading Nobilis before? Was it any easier for you?

Also, would totally love to be in a Nobilis game. I like 5e and all, but I have so many other systems on my shelves and drives that need playing...

[Lord Raziere]

I've played Nobilis (with, admittedly, some suitably-crazy people) and made quite a few characters, but I honestly haven't even made one Chuubo's character. There's something about the change in mechanics - the whole "Arc" system - that throws me off. Have you tried reading Nobilis before? Was it any easier for you?

Also, would totally love to be in a Nobilis game. I like 5e and all, but I have so many other systems on my shelves and drives that need playing...

I.....kind of understand Nobilis. I have Nobilis. and Nobilis Antithesis.

....I understand I think most of it. though I kind of want to play a Deceiver.

I think I understand Nobilis the most when I think about that one character idea I had for a Nobilis:

The Power of Secrets Revealed.:
-shatters worlds and lies
-changes things you thought you knew
-reveals things that you did not expect.

Thus when you use it, you can either literally shatter a planet, figuratively shatter someones world, or figuratively shatter the world of DC comics into a thousand different timelines. Or literally shatter a lie being told into a bunch of little sounds that don't make sense, or figuratively shatter the lie so that the truth is revealed.

Or you can literally change something you thought you knew by transforming it, or figuratively do by changing peoples perceptions of everything they thought they knew.

or you can reveal that the big threat your facing isn't that much of a threat all, weakening them, or you can reveal that you actually have a new power that you never spoken of before to defeat someone else, or you can simply reveal some detail in an investigation that others need and so on.

basically an Estate is supposed to be extremely flexible and apply both literally, metaphorically and figuratively. like imagine my character having the power to change everything with Twilight Zone or Shyamalan style twists, or to simply say "I am not left handed" in a number of ways. and there is simply no end to it, its an exercise in semantic superpowers. So in a way you do have think "Fae-like" because the Fair Folk often used the letter of their contracts rather than the spirit- if they could interpret something in a technical way to get away with what they're doing, they could do it. Same with Estates- only the letter matters not the spirit. and with semantics its all in how you word it.

This of course makes the Nobilis very powerful, near reality-warping. To the point where it would be better to not think of the universe of Nobilis as consistent at all. Its a mutable reality, populated by many reality warpers each with their own little realities that they touch the rest of reality with. The Estate and its Properties are basically the rules of a single reality among many others. Even the Properties of the Ordinary World can count as an Estate in a sense. Just a very static and set stone one that can't really act on its own- it trades reality warping for stability. Of course, normal humans can't handle reality being in a mutable ever changing thing decided by the whims of strange alien beings when those changes can be anything from "suddenly stop signs are green." to "gravity doesn't exist anymore, lol" to all trees suddenly becoming giant wolves made of anti-matter who eat everything, to name a few relatively tame examples. Thats why we dwell in a stable consistent world in the first place: Earth is Order, and everywhere else is Chaos.

Chuubo's is really just a stranger, smaller scale version of that. Only the world of Order itself is filled with chaotic strangeness, so *shrug*. and there is no godly domains, so the reality warping instead comes from your characteristics: if your heroic enough to arrive in time, reality warps so that you arrive in time to save the day like a hero. simple as that.

I realize that this might not actually help or whatever of course, but this is all really hard to wrap your mind around regardless! the human mind is not built to handle chaos and the mutability of a world that runs on reality warping via applying one worlds rules to another in Nobilis or reshaping itself around your own little narrative in Chuubos. The best thing for someone to understand all this might be to pick a trope-like archetype then play it not just to the hilt, but take it up to eleven so the archetype seems to make reality warp around them for its story to play out. If that makes any sense.

[JBPuffin]

Yep, you've got it - that Estate's interesting, as they should be. I have a Power of Cement who goes around fixing things, a Power of Numbers who got turned into a Pikachu, a Power of Resurrection (because someone has to be in charge of that), and a Power of Sorcery in love with a Deceiver [of Sorcery, essentially]. Oh, and a homosexual velociraptor uplifted by aliens who now is the Power of The Hoard, a sentient manifestation of greed based on the smaller ones dragons have. In a similar vein of "open-ended concepts and insane power," one of my players had a Power of BS (played up as a cross between The Force and Reality-Warping: the Estate) and Chickens (because Chickens are great).

I get the premise of Chuubo's, but I don't entirely know what a character looks like, and usually I'm good with kitchen sinks. I might need to start with a normal Arc and just build a character around it (didn't do that the first time and should have), and then I might get what's going on better...yeah, I'm going to give that a shot. We'll see if it works.

[Friv]

JB: I might be able to share what a character looks like with you!

A while ago, I demonstrated how the miraculous mechanics in Chuubo's could work by writing up a preposterous number of versions of the setting's resident nightmare scientist, Leonardo De Montreal. The final PDF is over here. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzYMyTM9S9LwdXdvT2YzRlpic3c/view) It at least gives an idea of how you might use miraculous powers to express an idea in a wide range of situations.

(I will need to update the project once the finalized version of a lot of those Arcs are released, but it serves for now.)

[solidork]

I'm pretty sure that there is a miraculous arc in Chuubo's that is essentially a Nobilis character in that you get an estate (I don't remember what it is actually called) and get similar kinds of powers.

I've got both Nobilis as well as Chuubo's! I half way through Nobilis when I decided that Chuubo's would probably be better for my purposes (which is... uh... imagining AU fanfics that I will never write? :smallredface: Even Nobilis was too dark for my current obsession) but I will definitely get back to Nobilis at some point.

@Friv - I spent a decent amount of time looking for example Chuubo's characters without much luck, so I will definitely check that out.

[Yuki Akuma]

I'm pretty sure that there is a miraculous arc in Chuubo's that is essentially a Nobilis character in that you get an estate (I don't remember what it is actually called) and get similar kinds of powers.

I've got both Nobilis as well as Chuubo's! I half way through Nobilis when I decided that Chuubo's would probably be better for my purposes (which is... uh... imagining AU fanfics that I will never write? :smallredface: Even Nobilis was too dark for my current obsession) but I will definitely get back to Nobilis at some point.

@Friv - I spent a decent amount of time looking for example Chuubo's characters without much luck, so I will definitely check that out.

A basic Nobilis character starts out with at least 1 in three Arcs and a rating of 0 in a fourth. Just so you know~ (Which is a perfectly valid starting miraculous character in Chuubo's, to be fair...)

Chuubo's Miraculous Arcs are designed to emulate the four ability scores in Nobilis, see.

(Honestly to fully stat out even a Noble with a 0 in all four scores you'd probably need more than three Arc Ratings, but...)

[solidork]

A basic Nobilis character starts out with at least 1 in three Arcs and a rating of 0 in a fourth. Just so you know~ (Which is a perfectly valid starting miraculous character in Chuubo's, to be fair...)

Chuubo's Miraculous Arcs are designed to emulate the four ability scores in Nobilis, see.

(Honestly to fully stat out even a Noble with a 0 in all four scores you'd probably need more than three Arc Ratings, but...)

Ok, you can be an aspiring Nobilis character. :D I just remembered that one of the arcs gets you an Estate, which was the thing about Nobilis that I thought was the coolest.

[Friv]

There are actually a few Chuubo's Arcs that can give you an Estate of one sort or another.

The one you're probably thinking of is Keeper of Gardens - it's the most direct, "you have a mystical Garden and you can manipulate its Region Properties to match your nature", and it's in the core book. But there are a few others that approach the idea from different angles:

*) If you're Accursed (a corebook Arc) you have a Sanctuary, which functions like a small Estate that you can retreat to for protection, and which grants powers to you if you stay there.

*) If you are Called Away (an upcoming Arc in draft form), your Estate is a mystical realm that you are called to protect and defend. You can reshape it, but not really redefine its nature, and you're also tied to the force trying to destroy it. (Called Away is the classic "Hero From Another World" Arc.)

*) If you're Indomitable (another upcoming Arc in draft form), you get a lair eventually, which serves as a small estate that is your home and retreat. Indomitable is about suffering from a terrible curse that's actually really cool (you're a vampire, but like a neat fun vampire, even if you grump about it. Or you're Saitama, and you are cursed with such great strength that fights aren't fun any more.)

*) If you're a Creature of Delirum or an Impresario, you can sort of forge Connections to particular places and turn them into pseudo-Estates, but they're not really a core aspect of your character sheet.

There are probably other ways to do it with a bit of massaging, but those are the main ones that I can think of.

*EDIT* Oh, also! If you just want examples of characters that people built, there's a Chuubo wiki (http://chuubo.wikidot.com/citizens) with some characters on it. They may vary in quality level, I haven't checked all of them.

[Yuki Akuma]

There are actually a few Chuubo's Arcs that can give you an Estate of one sort or another.

The one you're probably thinking of is Keeper of Gardens - it's the most direct, "you have a mystical Garden and you can manipulate its Region Properties to match your nature", and it's in the core book. But there are a few others that approach the idea from different angles:

*) If you're Accursed (a corebook Arc) you have a Sanctuary, which functions like a small Estate that you can retreat to for protection, and which grants powers to you if you stay there.

*) If you are Called Away (an upcoming Arc in draft form), your Estate is a mystical realm that you are called to protect and defend. You can reshape it, but not really redefine its nature, and you're also tied to the force trying to destroy it. (Called Away is the classic "Hero From Another World" Arc.)

*) If you're Indomitable (another upcoming Arc in draft form), you get a lair eventually, which serves as a small estate that is your home and retreat. Indomitable is about suffering from a terrible curse that's actually really cool (you're a vampire, but like a neat fun vampire, even if you grump about it. Or you're Saitama, and you are cursed with such great strength that fights aren't fun any more.)

*) If you're a Creature of Delirum or an Impresario, you can sort of forge Connections to particular places and turn them into pseudo-Estates, but they're not really a core aspect of your character sheet.

There are probably other ways to do it with a bit of massaging, but those are the main ones that I can think of.

*EDIT* Oh, also! If you just want examples of characters that people built, there's a Chuubo wiki (http://chuubo.wikidot.com/citizens) with some characters on it. They may vary in quality level, I haven't checked all of them.

These are all actually more related to the Treasure ability score than the Domain or Persona ability scores that deal with Estates. It can get a little blurry around the edges though.

The arcs with Estates the way Nobles have them are stuff like Creature of Light, Elemental, Reality Syndrome, Primordial, stuff like that.

Important terminology you may not be aware of: An Estate, in Nobilis terms, is an aspect of reality - an element, a thing you are in control of. Like Fire, or Love, or Houses, or Lipton Instant Noodles. It's not a place.

Another important not: Arcs don't map 1:1 with Nobilis ability scores, but they're pretty close. Every type of divine being gets four Arcs that map more-or-less to their Aspect (being awesome at things related to their biology and actions), Domain (controlling the physical 'stuff' of an Estate), Persona (controlling the metaphysical 'story' of your Estate) and Treasure (things/places/people you care about and therefore have mystical power over).

[Friv]

Oh, right. Ignore everything that I posted, because I mess that up a lot. Which is ironic, because I'm a massive Chuubo's fan and some of the Chuubo's Arcs specifically tell you to choose an Estate for your Arc to be about, and yet I still wind up thinking of them as literal places.

I need to memorize Nobilis a lot more. For all that I do a lot of Chuubo's stuff, my Nobilis familiarity is pretty minor.

[JBPuffin]

I have a 3-Arc Elemental (picked before I realized it was just a Noble by another name :P) who's essentially a truenamer, which was my original idea for a character done right. I think I've got the gist of it now, but I will check out that example, Friv

[The_Snark]

@Friv - I spent a decent amount of time looking for example Chuubo's characters without much luck, so I will definitely check that out.

I found that reading the example characters from The Glass-Maker's Dragon (the first premade campaign written for the game) was what really helped the system click in my mind. Unfortunately, that book isn't available to non-backers yet. I understand the Halloween Special does a similar thing on a smaller scale (mini-campaign, only 4 characters rather than 8), but haven't looked at it myself.

If you can't finagle a look at one of those, Friv's wiki link is probably the next best thing. The history (http://chuubo.wikidot.com/history) section may also be worth a look - this is basically where people have stored information about past and present games, and sometimes they include pretty detailed character write-ups. I haven't looked over them all, but would recommend The Many Mysteries of Horizon School (http://chuubo.wikidot.com/campaigns:seeds-of-the-new-moon) and Lest Ye Become (http://chuubo.wikidot.com/campaigns:lest-ye-become), both of which followed Jenna Moran's style of writing up characters as if someone else might play them. (The latter actually is intended for that, but is unfortunately not finished.)

[Friv]

Lest Ye Become (http://chuubo.wikidot.com/campaigns:lest-ye-become), both of which followed Jenna Moran's style of writing up characters as if someone else might play them. (The latter actually is intended for that, but is unfortunately not finished.)

Oh, geez, I totally forgot that campaign. I really do need to go back and at least upload everything I wrote about it. Or maybe finish it. Or both.

[JBPuffin]

JB: I might be able to share what a character looks like with you!

A while ago, I demonstrated how the miraculous mechanics in Chuubo's could work by writing up a preposterous number of versions of the setting's resident nightmare scientist, Leonardo De Montreal. The final PDF is over here. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzYMyTM9S9LwdXdvT2YzRlpic3c/view) It at least gives an idea of how you might use miraculous powers to express an idea in a wide range of situations.

I'm fleshing out my sheet using your Montreals for help; it's really helped me peg this guy down (truenamer given the Estate of Language). Good job with those examples :smallbiggrin:!

[Lord Raziere]

Hm.

Lets try and see how this system would say.....create a demon who is seeking redemption.

I guess I could go with an Emptiness Arc.

But I could also go with an Aspect Arc, or a Knight Arc.

Though I guess Otherworldly Arc could work if I say its like a conflict between the world of evil and world of good.

Hm. they are certainly right about this being full of alternate character interpretations....

[JBPuffin]

Hm.

Lets try and see how this system would say.....create a demon who is seeking redemption.

I guess I could go with an Emptiness Arc.

But I could also go with an Aspect Arc, or a Knight Arc.

Though I guess Otherworldly Arc could work if I say its like a conflict between the world of evil and world of good.

Hm. they are certainly right about this being full of alternate character interpretations....

If being a demon is more than a Superior Skill (aka, Miraculous Powerz), Wounded Angel's almost a perfect fit, and Become Somebody (a Better Person)'s nice...and some characters might like other ones, but for focusing on redemption those are the best two from the original book.

[Yuki Akuma]

If being a demon is more than a Superior Skill (aka, Miraculous Powerz), Wounded Angel's almost a perfect fit, and Become Somebody (a Better Person)'s nice...and some characters might like other ones, but for focusing on redemption those are the best two from the original book.

Actual Devils - that is, Fallen Angels - get Reality Syndrome, Wounded Angel, Allegory and Creature of the Light.

Demons - that is, mortals native to Hell - are complete individuals so they could honestly have anything. Usually they just have Superior Demon 2 or so.

[Friv]

I'm going to shift the angle and focus on the "Seeking Redemption" part.

Your "backstory" of being a cool, violent demon can cover almost anything, depending on what sort of a demon you were. Maybe you were a Wounded Angel, because if someone tried to harm you, you just turned that into dark power. Maybe you turned into a giant monster and corrupted the world with your passing, and were a Child of the Ash, Maybe you were Accursed, and just destroyed everything with your touch, or maybe you were a Creature of Delirium and literally stole the souls of the people you met and controlled them. All totally valid.

What matters most is what you're doing now. Why you want redemption, and what's holding you back.

If you want redemption, but the thing that's making it difficult is that you're a demon and being a demon inherently makes redemption hard, you're probably on an Emptiness Arc - Indomitable, if you're becoming a cool, tortured demon with even more demon-power, or Troubled if you're fighting your inherent role as a demon and being sly and sneak, or Accursed if your redemption is pretty much doomed.

If you want redemption, but the thing that's making it difficult is that people see you as a demon and you aren't sure what /not/ being a demon looks like, you're probably on a Knight Arc - Allegory, if you're taking all your demon-might and then adding a new legend, and Become Somebody if you're going to become something new, and then turn around and help / force redemption on others.

And if you want redemption, because you've been touched by the Divine once again and it is slowly transforming you from a demon into something else, you're probably on a Mystic Arc - Primordial if that force is moving through you and teaching you, Awakening if it is possessing and directing you.

[Lord Raziere]

.....ok here is what I don't get:

how is Wounded Angel a Bindings Arc?

[Yuki Akuma]

.....ok here is what I don't get:

how is Wounded Angel a Bindings Arc?

You're using your body to contain a Blasphemy. Or you're holding back your own Hell taint. Or you're an artificial body built to contain a horrible monster. Depending.

The main thing is, when you die, a Bad Thing gets released, so that's why it's a Bindings arc. You are, as the central premise, trying to keep some horrible, dangerous thing that might or might not be a part of you under control.

[Lord Raziere]

You're using your body to contain a Blasphemy. Or you're holding back your own Hell taint. Or you're an artificial body built to contain a horrible monster. Depending.

The main thing is, when you die, a Bad Thing gets released, so that's why it's a Bindings arc. You are, as the central premise, trying to keep some horrible, dangerous thing that might or might not be a part of you under control.

Ooooooh. Huh. I didn't know that. Thanks.

.....so wait let me see if I get this right:

Miraculous Arcs are subsets of the Arcs, and its possible to like, make new Miraculous Arcs that fit under the Arc? Like you can take the Aspect Arc and instead of going with The Ace, you could say, design a Miraculous Arc like "Psychic" where you get stronger and better because your honing psychic powers rather than just being generically awesome?

[Friv]

Absolutely! As someone who's made the attempt, putting together a really good miraculous arc is harder than you'd think, but there's no rule against it (and, in fact, I used someone else's homebrewed Immortal Emptiness Arc, "Grail Seeker", for the Lest Ye Become campaign.)

If you're building your own miraculous Arc, you just need to decide if it's Immortal, Frantic, or Sickly, and then decide what sort of powers you get on levelling up, and when you get new powers versus just getting easier applications of existing powers. You can do it with little tweaks, or wholesale redesigns.

Generally you would want your Arc to be general enough that you can use it in a few ways - instead of "honing psychic powers" as an Aspect Arc, you might develop "developing a new superhuman nature that is natural for you", and "Psychic powers" would be one option people could take.

*EDIT* It's also worth noting that some Miraculous Arcs can be adapted into other versions. For example, in the core book Reality Syndrome is a Sickly Knight Arc, but Jenna Moran recently said on her Tumblr that she's making slight changes to make it Sickly Aspect as part of her next Chuubo's book, and she originally published Self-Made as a Sickly Storyteller Arc before modifying it to be Sickly Shepherd.

You could probably build a decent version of Wounded Angel, without too many changes, as a Frantic Emptiness Arc in which the thing inside you is your Curse, rather than an external force, but otherwise a lot of your powers are the same. You'd want to change your Devices to reflect internal power instead of external magic, and probably modify Dramatic to be slightly less under your character's control, and I'd probably change Salvation a bit to be less Bindings-like as a power, but the core mechanic of "Wounds make you stronger" and "there is a terrible thing within you" works on Emptiness.

[Lord Raziere]

Huh.

Hm.

It doesn't seem like I've actually narrowed down what I'd want to play using the system. its so flexible that there are a lot of ways the story "demon seeking redemption" or "a Psychic" could go, so a lot of arcs to apply.

lets try something more abstract.

I tend to go for characters who face hardships and darkness and have some weird power that causes or involves those hardships in their backgrounds and face hardships in their current life and often develop tough exteriors to some extent as a result, but ultimately they are awesome, kind people at heart who keep working through it until they get a happy ending. also they tend to be snarky and genre-savvy but I think that is just a quirk of mine. What Arc(s) would say fit that kind of story?

[Friv]

Having a weird power that causes or involves the hardships you face is pretty textbook Emptiness - your cool powers are a Curse to you, but also they are cool powers. Emptiness Arcs also usually start in the "I am struggling with a terrible thing" stage, and work to "I understand how to make this terrible thing not so terrible by accepting it as part of my life".

Like, there are other ways to model that if you want to, but Emptiness is the obvious choice.

If your curse is extremely powerful and cool, you're Indomitable (a Tumblr Arc) - you have a Curse that makes you unstoppable in a narrowly-defined field of power, you're kind of terrifying when you deploy your power but sort of inconspicuous when you're undercover, and you have a specific great way to sense the world around you. A psychic-power curse falls into all of that; I would probably suggest Indomitable for that character.

If you want to be less unstoppable and more struggling, though, Troubled is also a good choice. It lets you "just know" things, and use your abilities to ferret out information and react to situations in a wide array of successes, as well as slipping out from under mind control and transformations after a short time affected. It also may allow you to lurk unnoticed and explode dramatically into a scene. Troubled is an in-progress Arc, so its powers aren't canonically finalized, but there's a first draft floating around under the name "Renegade".

Also I think you have a basic quest - a struggles quest that I'm going to call "Tsundere Clegane" but that you can give a much less meme-based title to. ;) Once per scene, when you help someone out and prove your kind heart while also being kind of aloof and grumpy and stern about it, you can claim one XP towards your Basic Quest. Just pretend you don't care, while proving that you actually do.

[Lord Raziere]

Having a weird power that causes or involves the hardships you face is pretty textbook Emptiness - your cool powers are a Curse to you, but also they are cool powers. Emptiness Arcs also usually start in the "I am struggling with a terrible thing" stage, and work to "I understand how to make this terrible thing not so terrible by accepting it as part of my life".

Like, there are other ways to model that if you want to, but Emptiness is the obvious choice.

If your curse is extremely powerful and cool, you're Indomitable (a Tumblr Arc) - you have a Curse that makes you unstoppable in a narrowly-defined field of power, you're kind of terrifying when you deploy your power but sort of inconspicuous when you're undercover, and you have a specific great way to sense the world around you. A psychic-power curse falls into all of that; I would probably suggest Indomitable for that character.

If you want to be less unstoppable and more struggling, though, Troubled is also a good choice. It lets you "just know" things, and use your abilities to ferret out information and react to situations in a wide array of successes, as well as slipping out from under mind control and transformations after a short time affected. It also may allow you to lurk unnoticed and explode dramatically into a scene. Troubled is an in-progress Arc, so its powers aren't canonically finalized, but there's a first draft floating around under the name "Renegade".

Also I think you have a basic quest - a struggles quest that I'm going to call "Tsundere Clegane" but that you can give a much less meme-based title to. ;) Once per scene, when you help someone out and prove your kind heart while also being kind of aloof and grumpy and stern about it, you can claim one XP towards your Basic Quest. Just pretend you don't care, while proving that you actually do.

Hm. Thanks. Yeah I can see a lot of my characters I've already made as well as characters I could possibly create having Emptiness so, I think your right, so I think its a good place to start.

[Yuki Akuma]

There's already an Aspect Miraculous Arc that's all about being miraculously awesome at some sort of "magic power" rather than being miraculously awesome at mundane things - it's called Magical Hero (http://jennamoran.tumblr.com/tagged/magical-hero), and it's an Immortal Aspect arc.

Psychic powers are even one of the examples Jenna came up with.

[The_Snark]

Yeah, Jenna has written/is working on a number of Miraculous Arcs on Tumblr, these may make it into print at some point but not yet. I think the most recent index of those is here (http://jennamoran.tumblr.com/post/157297311243/mid-february-thoughts-on-arc-assignments). Handy source of semi-canonical homebrew Arcs if you're looking for something beyond the core 12.

[Yuki Akuma]

Sigh.

I really want to play Chuubo's now. But the last time I tried playing it on the forums it fizzled out and died and I'm like 90% sure it was my fault. :smallannoyed: