whoops you already got that last one
Flight Potion: What constitutes a superpower or unusual ability in your world?
Flight Potion: What constitutes a superpower or unusual ability in your world?
Being a priest involves having a god literally show up and choose you, often once you're an adult. If you're not into that, you can definitely tell them to fuck off, but most Kephean city-states are super into that and most people grow up as polytheists (though often with a family or racial patron deity). Even rarer is a priest being chosen by a god who doesn't normally take interest in the race in question, such as Tios (the god of love, passion, pleasure, and marriage who favors satyrs) picking a harpy (regarded as aloof and favored by the god Rys) for a priest.
Orphics are pretty common, as most people know a little bit of magic just to make their day-to-day lives easier, but sometimes someone will be born with much stronger magic than usual. This is not something tied to bloodline, but rather regarded as a twist of fate, a blessing of a primordial or titan, or a case of "sometimes shit just happens". Two people with very little inherent magic could give birth to the Kephean equivalent of Superman without any warning. Likewise, two powerful Orphics could have a child who can't magic their way out of a box. Elemental bias for Orphics is also not direct, as you could be born and raised in a water-based city by water-aligned parents but still be more proficient with earth magic just based on who you are and how you handle things.
Demigods (the children of a god and a mortal) are pretty uncommon, even bordering on rare, because the gods have been busy as of late and haven't had time to have and raise their own kids. This is seen as a sign of dire times ahead, with the gods focused on something big instead of focusing on the mortals.
And that's not even getting into the daimones, but I can go on about those individually if anyone's interested.
New Capenna in Blood and Songbirds
Like most planes in the Multiverse, New Capenna doesn't get a lot of planeswalkers. In canon, the only planeswalker who's from the plane is Elspeth Tirel, who was actually raised in an Old Phyrexian mental facility down on Old Capenna rather than being from the city of New Capenna. In Blood and Songbirds, the only other planeswalker from the plane is the cephalid Lena Maise, who is growing up in the Obscura family.
Magic not based on Halo (the juiced essence of angels, who have now all left New Capenna) is tricky. Some families rely on Halo-based magic more than others, but there's also variation in magic used in those families.
For instance, the Brokers rely on Halo for their travel magic, but they don't need it for their contract magic. The viashino of the Riveteers don't need Halo for their fire breath and magic, but they need it to power their tools for building things up or tearing them down. The Cabaretti, despite using Halo as a party drug, are actually in the best place post-Halo-exhaustion: their druid magic has been used by them since well before the city's founding. The Maestros do a lot of sneaking and murdering, relying less on magic and more on skill. The Obscura's divination abilities aren't Halo-based either, but a fair number use Halo to enhance the accuracy of it.
Healing magic as a whole seems to be directly tied to Halo, but there are many variations on traditional healing magic on this plane.
But let's talk about the planeswalkers of Blood and Songbirds and what they bring to the table.
Mathias Markov, later called Mathias Maestros: Song magic from Innistrad, which has a vastly different vibe to the song magic of the Cabaretti. Innistradi song magic features more choir-like elements, more hymns to forgotten gods, more somber tones than the upbeat party music used by bards such as Kitt Kanto. Shield magic that he learned from Falco Spara, the founder and leader of the Brokers, so that he could use it to protect himself and others during all of the weird stuff going down. Psychic powers inherited from his Markov bloodline, giving him more headaches than anything. Vampirism and demonic influence due to his half-vampire half-demon nature, with the bonus ability of being able to survive by feeding on more than just blood. Metamagic in a limited, sensing sort of way.
Tibalt, later called Tibalt Maestros: Torture magic, both physical and mental, his Innistradi specialty. A great amount of fire resistance and fire magic that puts even Ob Nixilis to shame. Committing to the bit.
Jaren Rakdoson: Earth magic is his number one type of magic, with his spark making it almost effortless. Limited metamagic and animism, being vaguely aware of the Worldsoul of New Capenna and Ravnica, but nowhere else. Healing and energy transfer, mostly used to benefit mortals and angels. Mild demonic influence and Rakdos party tricks designed to terrify and intimidate, though he doesn't use those as much as Ritter thinks he should.
Ritter Rakdoson: Mind-influencing magic, particularly involving mounted animals such as griffins, rocs, and horse-shaped creatures, is his specialty. Though he did also use it to take over and control an archdemon in earlier chapters of Blood and Songbirds, drawing on Rakdos tricks that make betrayals the funniest shit ever. This effect continued even when he got to another plane because of how much he's trained it. Like his twin, mild demonic influence and other Rakdos party tricks are in his magical tool belt.
Working together, Jaren and Ritter can create and control rideable earth creatures that are like horses made of stone. Without Ritter, Jaren's half would run out of control and do more harm than good, while without Jaren, Ritter wouldn't even be able to start.
Lena Maise: Like most Obscura, she specializes in divination. Unlike most Obscura, she can use information from other planes that she's visited to enhance those divinations, often being able to predict when a planeswalker will arrive to the plane - though no one believed her before all of this started. Now this little kid is feeling smug because she was right.
Aminatou: It's everyone's favorite fate-altering eight-year-old!
Danae: Hailing from Theros, this siren also specializes in song magic. Unlike Mathias and the bards of New Capenna, her songs are often hymns of love and praise towards her patron, Ephara. Her songs sound best when sung by multiple people, which is difficult for her to do on New Capenna, as she's the only one who can carry those tunes. Her song magic also keeps you stuck in place so you have no choice but to listen to her diss track.
Petha Mazat: Hailing from Ravnica like Jaren and Ritter, Petha's specialty is in transmutation magic, the changing of forms. She's technically a Simic hybrid, even at her young age, but her base elven form is still recognizable. She's got cool-ass gills, too. And she's more than happy to turn people into toads if they start talking shit about her planeswalker friends.
Scrat: A lizard-like kobold from a plane no one's heard of (cough, he's technically a D&D crossover character from Eberron), Scrat specializes in the wild randomness of impromptu artifice. Need something jerry-rigged? Scrat's your kobold. Need to change how Broker communicators work? He's got a screwdriver out already. Need a small bomb to walk into a horde of enemies? He's got six in his pocket, as a matter of fact. He terrifies and confuses everyone except for Ziatora, who is more than happy to have this tiny viashino-like creature among her Riveteers thanks to his strange techniques.
Vasca: An eight-year-old minotaur from Zendikar, Vasca's power is simple: Super strength. Despite being nowhere near fully grown, she can already tussle with New Capenna's rhox and ogres and come out the victor (even though she's only tussled with Perrie so far, and he doesn't want her to get hurt). While plenty of New Capennans are strong, Vasca's level is definitely going to get well beyond them.
Trey: Another Theros planeswalker, Trey is a teenaged centaur whose magical specialization is calming everyone down. Despite coming from a Pheres band, he's learning diplomacy so he can help plenty of people. Green-based calming magic isn't common on New Capenna, so he's hoping to expand his practice into other, similar types of magic.
As you can see, a lot of the magic the planeswalkers know are common on other planes, but almost completely alien to New and Old Capenna alike. Especially the four older planeswalkers, who have had time to get good at their specialties and start to branch out.
