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Really Bad Shard Ideas


Oudeis

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Humiliation. The more you're mocked, the stronger you are. Masters of the art would employ crowds of people to belittle them, and the weakest people would have good self-esteem and stable relationships with their peers. Saboteurs would send in ninjas to whisper compliments to people as they slept, and the best thing a friend could do for you would be to make you think you were truly useless.

 

As a mild aside, Brandon actually has an idea - maybe even a draft - for a book where becoming sick gives you superpowers, but only as long as you are sick. You get a cold, you start doing some lightweight magic. Cancer gets you, now you are heavy duty. And so on.

 

For my idea? Weakness. The weaker you are... well. You know.

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As an exercise in the ridiculous, my friend and I decided to see if we could think of some Shards who would make the world they Invested just unbearably awful. Here are a few of our suggestions, what does the audience think?

 

...

Clowns.

 

..

 

Lol Balloonomancy!  Side effect, packing alot of dudes into a tiny carriage.

 

All tumble before the Lord Jogler!

Edited by agrooster
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Humiliation. The more you're mocked, the stronger you are. Masters of the art would employ crowds of people to belittle them, and the weakest people would have good self-esteem and stable relationships with their peers. Saboteurs would send in ninjas to whisper compliments to people as they slept, and the best thing a friend could do for you would be to make you think you were truly useless.

Brandon's nightmares of showing up to book signings in his underwear will give him unlimited power!

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Shard of Hypocrisy - does exactly the oposite of whatever you want (really WANT) it to do. Not just think you want. The logic here is similar to what Llarimar used againt Lightsong when speaking of the weather, if you want to check.

Shard of Exclusion - Invests itself in absolutely nothing. Except for very exclusive people.

Shard of Brandon - Uh... How to explain...

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...for your sheer dedication to this concept, up vote.

I actually had an alcomage in a story I wrote once. In the world every Mage has an elemental affinity. Wood, fire, soil, water, air were common ones. People sometimes had odd and specific ones, like sunshine. My guy had alcohol. His potions were all alcoholic and he was more powerful while drunk, and he had enough resistance to the deadly effects of alcohol to use his powers without having a 50 percent chance of dying every night.

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The Shard of Dreams.

 

When a Cognitive being falls asleep, they become invested and can do incredible things, but everything is done subconsciously and you have no control over what you have done. As soon as you wake up, you lose all investiture until you fall asleep again. Those who are awake have to try to find a way to deal with all the chaos that is generated by those who are asleep, to include killing nightmares, putting out fires, burying those who were killed by other peoples dreams, etc.

 

The Shard of Auto-correct

 

Invests everyone with the ability to communicate telepathically, but randomly auto-corrects their thoughts.

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The Shard of Death: Your powers become stronger the closer you are to dying, but you cannot use them to save yourself. We probably would have a whole lot of main characters in a story with this guy.

An interesting counterpoint to that would be a Shard of Life, which, the healthier and less likely to die you are, strengthens you, increases your immune system, etc - but as soon as you began risking yourself by using the powers proactively, rather than as a resource to keep you alive, they would start to disappear. I guess in that system, Lifey people would be a lot like those with a lot of Breaths on Nalthis with a bit of low-grade Allomantic pewter type effects, whereas Deathy people would be insanely strong and fast, but no more durable - you would be more prone to illness, dementia, broken bones, muscle atrophy, even from usage of power - like swinging a glass sledgehammer at something.

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Shard of Tipsiness - Alcohol-based magic. Different kinds of drinks give you different powers, and mixed drinks can do weird things - but if you pass out or get too drunk to do anything (or hit anyone) you're screwed in a fight.

 

Then there's the Oh Shard of Hangovers, who involuntarily Invests on people who drank too much alcohol the previous night, magically preventing them from experiencing a hangover. The collective hangovers from all these people are instead experienced by the Shard's holder (named Bilious). Incidentally, the holder of the Oh Shard of Hangovers really, really hates Tipsiness-based magic users.

 

Upvotes to those who got the reference. :P

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  • 3 weeks later...

An interesting counterpoint to that would be a Shard of Life, which, the healthier and less likely to die you are, strengthens you, increases your immune system, etc - but as soon as you began risking yourself by using the powers proactively, rather than as a resource to keep you alive, they would start to disappear. I guess in that system, Lifey people would be a lot like those with a lot of Breaths on Nalthis with a bit of low-grade Allomantic pewter type effects, whereas Deathy people would be insanely strong and fast, but no more durable - you would be more prone to illness, dementia, broken bones, muscle atrophy, even from usage of power - like swinging a glass sledgehammer at something.

So glass cannons vs. titanium toothpicks? XD

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Then there's the Oh Shard of Hangovers, who involuntarily Invests on people who drank too much alcohol the previous night, magically preventing them from experiencing a hangover. The collective hangovers from all these people are instead experienced by the Shard's holder (named Bilious). Incidentally, the holder of the Oh Shard of Hangovers really, really hates Tipsiness-based magic users.

 

Upvotes to those who got the reference. :P

really wish I could up-vote you a thousand times. MY FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!!! (well, mini-series, really...)

 

EDIT: Oh, and in case there was any doubt I got the reference, here.

Edited by Aether
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The shard of redundancy: it allows you to do what you could have already done before.

 

the shard of apathy: you get superimpressively amazing power, but only as long as you don't want to use them for anything. If you think of using them, you're not aphatetic anymore and you lose your powers.

EDIT: similar in effect to the shard of indecision, which gives you powers only as long as you are uncertain on how to use them.

Redundancy is responsible for this doubled-up magic system.

Edited by king of nowhere
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Shard of Insanity - Being crazy gives you power - actually never mind. That's been done, and it can work.

It makes what your insanity is real. Those voices in your head they now exist. The butterflies are trying to take over the world afterall.

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I don't know if this would be a horrible Shard or an awesome one:

The Shard of Musicals

 

Sure, the singing and dancing would be awesome for awhile, but how many times can you listen to people shouting lines from the Sound of Music to fuel their magic before you go insane?

On the other hand, battles would be amazingly coreographed. I'm just imagining a duel taking place like in West Side Story.

 

Bonus: Your magic grows stronger by the number of people you can get to join your song and dance moves.

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Wars would basically be guer

 

I don't know if this would be a horrible Shard or an awesome one:

The Shard of Musicals

 

Sure, the singing and dancing would be awesome for awhile, but how many times can you listen to people shouting lines from the Sound of Music to fuel their magic before you go insane?

On the other hand, battles would be amazingly coreographed. I'm just imagining a duel taking place like in West Side Story.

 

Bonus: Your magic grows stronger by the number of people you can get to join your song and dance moves.

wars would basically be fought guerrilla style with flash mobs.

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