actually I do wanna talk about fantasy au stuff a little bit more bc i’ve got things more solidified as a process of building stuff
everybody sits somewhere on a ‘capacity for casting magic’ spectrum. this isn’t really affected by race. some people have 0. some people have so so much and can do incredible things if they apply themselves to the learning.
there’s also intrinsic magic which is more like. an allotment? sort of an RNG grab bag sort of thing. most people have 1 allotment which is either present from birth or becomes apparent later. some people have none at all which is rare (but can also mean they just can’t tell what it is. sometimes u have to have a more learned mage do an appraisal.) rarely do people have 2+. but this is all random. can’t be inherited, etc. every unique being ends up with an allotment. because it’s fun
magic is sort of treated as a science and while anyone can go to the colleges to learn, if you don’t have the capacity for casting techniques obviously you cannot do this. but there are things in the world with magical properties that can be studied without needing to do applied magic. physical magics include alchemy, certain types of divination, and applied geologics.
the main thing about this au though is it’s a fruit salad. if it’s fun, it goes in. but i do like to have a little bit of structure to make it easier to jump back in after working on other stuff for a while.
Simmons has the ability to summon and control fire but he’s still deathly afraid of it and is a huge stickler for fire safety. No one else is allowed in the kitchen while he’s cooking unless it’s Sarge or Mike to the rescue with a bucket of water while he’s panicking.
Grif has ‘stone-sense’, and can immediately identify all types of stone and other mineral formations. like bones! he tries not to think too hard about how he can tell other peoples’ dental and bone health at a glance. Definitely does not tell people about this because then everyone will bother him all the time and he’s not interested in becoming a dentist.
Connie can bubble sound for keeping or releasing at her discretion. It has to be something she can hear, but she can absolutely keep it in a bottle to send like an audio message, or to save and replay when it’s useful to distract someone or use as evidence or blackmail. Or to annoy her siblings with/prove her rightness in arguments. these things are also important
Michael J. “Mike” Caboose can talk to all kinds of animals. They don’t always have a lot to say, but he just likes to be able to make all kinds of friends. Bugs are a little annoying though because flies can’t control their flight paths and don’t care to and he is very annoyed about them bumping into his face and arms. If he appears to be yelling at nothing, it is probably the bugs.
Leonard Church Jr. can leave behind a brief illusion of himself to fool other people and often uses this to slip out from under his bodyguard’s thumb and have like five minutes to himself for once in his goddamn life. Royal guard captain Butch Flowers is sharp as a tack but not even he can tell the difference between Leonard’s surly illusion pouting by his window and the actual one shimmying down the vines below it.