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Nezha's Miracle Level Chart
Nezha's version of Desire covers high-affect, high-intensity
passions, like suicidal samurai honor, vengeful fury,
obsessive lust, Scrooge-level greed and things like
that. Any desire that's moderate, rational or otherwise
under control doesn't fall under her Estate. My rule of
thumb is that if someone wouldn't either kill or die for a
desire, then it doesn't fall under her Estate.
| Level |
Kind |
Description |
| 0 | Estate-driven divinations |
These are desires that scream themselves out to the
universe so fiercely that it's impossible /not/ to
hear them. I think that all estate-driven divinations
should count as demands for Nezha's help. ("Don't
*want* so badly, fool! If you keep it up, I'll have to
give it you!")
|
| 1 | Ghost miracles |
A typical ghost miracle of Desire creates a moment of
sympathetic imagination; the person affected will be
able to imagine, just for a second, the sheer depth of
desire that someone else is feeling.
|
| 2 | Lesser divinations |
A lesser divination lets her see into a person's
heart, so that she might know what passions propel
them into action. She could tell if someone hated
enough to pull the trigger, for example.
|
| 3 | Lesser preservations |
A lesser preservation of desire keeps desires from
naturally fading. She could extend the period of
exuberant romantic love in a relationship, so that it
takes much longer for it to turn into natural domestic
affection.
|
| 4 | Lesser creations |
With a lesser creation, Nezha can create a simple
instance of a desire. She could, for example, make
someone conceive an obsession for someone else -- I
suspect that this is probably one of the most common
demands make of her. (Though see John Collier's "The
Chaser" as to why this might be a bad idea....)
|
| 5 | Lesser destructions |
A lesser destruction can, obviously, suppress a
person's passion for a thing. She can also suppress
the possibility of a passion being *fulfilled* -- she
could use a lesser destruction to keep a starving
man's hunger from fading, so that when presented with
food he would keep eating until he died.
|
| 5 | Major divinations |
At this level, Nezha can divine the object of desire
and find the things that people are obsessed with.
|
| 6 | Lesser changes |
With a lesser change, Nezha can twist someone's
desire, so that they want something else. She could
also change the character of a desire, so that someone
might sweat their hate out their pores, or turn a love
into a dust that could be blown into someone's face.
|
| 6 | Major preservations |
With a major preservation, Nezha could make a love
last until the end of time. I'm not sure what it
actually means for an obsession to outlive the person
who felt it; since desires are Platonically real it's
obviously possible, but how it translates into game
world terms I'm not sure.
|
| 7 | Major creations |
With a major creation of Desire, Nezha can create new
categories of desire. For example,
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| 8 | Major destructions |
With a major destruction, Nezha could eliminate
certain kinds of obsession from the human emotional
repertoire -- she could eliminate avarice, or
lust. Or, on a smaller scale, she could permanently
remove all capability to feel passion from a single
person. (Though I expect doing so would turn that
person into a sociopath, as they resort to
progressively more extreme measures in an effort to
feel something, anything.)
|
| 9 | Major changes |
With a major change, Nezha can alter the nature of
desire in some fundamental way. Imagine altering
desires so that they are bound into coins rather than
into personalities, so people must acquire the
personality traits they need to survive through the
economic processes of buying and selling.
|
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, if
any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. [...]
And the world passes away and the lust of it; but he who does God's
will abides forever." (John 2:15-17)
Nezha's secondary Estate is the World. It represents
material power, status, and wealth, but only if it is an
ill-gotten or immoral success. I choose it so that she can
actually fulfill requests for wealth or power. A miracle of
the World could destroy a man's wealth, but only if he were
a gangster, or a corrupt union official skimming from the
pension fund. If he were an honest businessman who had
earned his wealth through hard work and selling things of
real value, then the World could not touch it.
| Level |
Kind |
Description |
| 0 | Estate-driven divinations |
An estate-driven divination means that the World is
speaking to Nezha for some reason. I visualize this as
the estate whispering into her ear like Richelieu into
Louis XIII's. She can also use the World to make
herself look like a "big shot".
|
| 1 | Ghost miracles |
A ghost miracle of the World can add a hint of jaded
worldliness to a thing. For example, a ghost miracle
of the world could give a theological text a cynical
and Pharisaical tone, or it could make people seeing a
diamond necklace wonder if the are conflict diamonds
from Sierra Leone.
|
| 2 | Lesser divinations |
With a lesser divination of the World, Nezha can
identify people who profit from their hypocrisy, like
gangsters, corrupt bureacrats, or anyone who
deliberately breaks his or her own moral code for
profit or power. Hypocrisy and insincerity are
essential components of the World: even though he is
evil, a suicide bomber is not part of this Estate. (In
the world/flesh/devil triad, a suicidal fanatic would
be of the devil.)
|
| 3 | Lesser preservations |
With a lesser preservation of the World, Nezha could
prevent a jury from convicting a mobster, let a priest
continue on at his parish despite sleeping with his
parishioners, or a CEO beat a fraud charge.
|
| 4 | Lesser creations |
With a lesser creation of the World, Nezha can create
ill-gotten riches, or grant someone undeserved social
status, or fame independent of talent. She could make
someone into Tony Soprano, or into a a bubblegum pop
star. (This wouldn't change that person's
personality, so they could walk away from it -- but
how many people would willingly surrender fame and
wealth?)
|
| 5 | Lesser destructions |
A lesser destruction of the World can strip someone of
status, wealth, or power, if it was not honestly
earned. It can also destroy books written to justify
the unjustifiable, or
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| 5 | Major divinations |
With a major divination, Nezha could identify everyone
who a gangster has extorted, or the serial number of a
corrupt businessman's Swiss bank account, and so on.
|
| 6 | Lesser changes |
With a lesser change of the World, Nezha could
transform Jerry Falwell into a record industry
executive, by changing the nature of his complicity
with the World.
|
| 6 | Major preservations |
With a major preservation of the World, Nezha could
forever protect an entire group of Worldly people from
the law -- for example, she could have forever
protected cigarette manufacturers from being exposed
as liars.
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| 7 | Major creations |
With a major creation of the World, Nezha could create
a worldwide criminal conspiracy, or she could create a
major new social trend that celebrates worldly
success.
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| 8 | Major destructions |
With a major destruction Nezha could make the
Teamsters and Enron honest, make the Catholic church
stop covering up pedophilia, or stop the FBI from
performing illegal wiretaps.
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| 9 | Major changes |
With a major change of the World, she could change the
hypocrisies that society holds most dear. In the US,
she might make the need to be appear to be an
individual less important the need to appear to be
reliable, say.
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Brilliance
Cities
Desire
Loss
Romance
Story
Tea
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