Exactly as it says on the tin. And what affects might two lines with differing abilities have?

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Um, by the magical powers originating from blood?

Gave them our reactions, our explosions, all that was ours For graphs of passion and charts of stars...

Okay, witch family from Ireland, interbreeded with Selkies at some point, what abilities might that family have that differ it from the rest?

edited 1st Mar '11 3:56:48 AM by Zolnier

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Polymorphing into/talking with seals, maybe? Depends on what powers 'the rest' have, really.

"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane"

Witches are all capable of the same generalized magic, some families have techniques that they have invented and jealously guard the secrets of; some have inate abilities that they just "know" how to do. And individual styles are even more weirdly diverse.

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Describe your world in more detail, and I'll be able to give more helpful comments. Deal?

edited 1st Mar '11 5:00:29 AM by Theram

Modern day Australia, masquerade in place; the setting centers on St Cyprian, a sorta deconstruction of Hogwarts and it's ilk.

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Okay, well, in that case the seal-thing is all I have. Or perhaps more generally applied to all sea animals.

I think Selkies were known for seducing humans, too. So maybe the witches could have some powers in that regard.

"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane"

What about a family descended from faries?

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Proficient in illusions, maybe, but that's just because I normally make the connection 'fragile' -> 'illusions'. I'm not sure why.

Fairies have often been connected with the dead, so ... necromancy?

"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane"

I thought fairies had green eyes, tended to bite people, and hate the phrase "Thank you."

Would you kindly click my dragons?

Oh and selkies dont tend to be the seducers in stories, usaully they are captured by human men to be their wives. And what about a family with Satyr blood?

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

The Fair Folk are weird.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

There are two different ways that I can see doing it. Either magic is In the Blood, and different bloodlines have different abilities (eg, some might be able to create illusions, while others are shapeshifters), or else everyone has basically the same abilities, it's just that families have focused in certain areas so are better at it for that reason (eg, everyone can create illusions, shapeshift, shoot fireballs, talk to Nature Spirits, etc, but each family is much better at one than others). In a Hogwarts style setting, the latter is much less likely, since receiving a "public education" would tend to erase those sorts of differences.

edited 2nd Mar '11 8:37:15 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I understand, and I'll write up what I cam up with during the last hours.

Fairy powers

• Living Mirage: An ability that creates a 'realistic' illusion.

While normal (as in caste-able under 14 days WITH a circle and ingredients costing a few hundred Dollars) glamours are essentially magical sock-puppets kept in place by the caster's will, a LM actaully possesses the ability of self-improvement by "observing" the victim's reaction and reading her emotions.

Let's say you want to Mind Rape somebody with the image of their dead uncle, okay? A normal mirage spell when not under direct control has only a very limited array of possible reactions (those that were defined beforehand), which makes it impractical for complicated tasks that go beyond creating Shadow Clones, improving one's looks or transforming a shabby hut into a palace.

Those of fairy lineage will obtain all the information they can get and through their will and a few simple incantations summon up an image that not only looks like the dead uncle, but also acts like him as well without intervention, while discovering and incorporating new information from the way the target interacts with it, making the glamour more and more real the longer the victim interacts with it, instead of lesss.

• Flight—Intuitive ability that is considered too dangerous to achieve with regular spellcraft, which is why most witches confine themselves to long jumps or just regular walking.

• Body of Air And Shadow Using this power requires a lot of training, but it comes with a high reward as well.

Everbody who has mastered this rare talent gains access to a lot of places she could never otherwise go.

Bo Aa S gives you the power to project your mind to any place you have been any observe from the darkness. It also enables you to transform your physical body into an aetherial form and walk through walls or teleport through shadows.

• Soullessness Members of fairy bloodlines have are able to completely turn of their feelings in times of high stress.

This also enables them to lie perfectly to both humans and machines.

Drawbacks

• Geis This means that any and all promises made by a member of the fairy house are magically binding to this person, making their fulfilment second only to the preservation of their own life.
• Strong aversion to heat.
• Mild Sociopathic tendencies, which mainly manifest as a compulsion to play "tricks" on other people.

Cool, what about selkies?

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Glad you liked it. First tell me which other creatures' descendants you want to have in your world, okay? I have a lot of ideas, but I'll only bother to write down those that are potentially useful to you. Will you limit it to only creatures from Irish/Scottish folklore, or are native Australian beings acceptable as well?

edited 3rd Mar '11 12:19:32 AM by Theram

As many cultures as possible. And you don't see enough Native Australian mtyhology. For now let's say selkies, fallen angels, satyrs, and the Norse idea of elves.

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Prepare for massive InfoDumps, ha! Are the fallen angels fallen in the sense that they are also demons, or fallen in the sense that they didn't stay in heaven were they were supposed to stay? Yes, there's a fundamental difference both in the powers and the costs.

Is there any power or talent that is off-limits, or does everything go as long as it is well-balanced?

Angels as in demons. And as long as it's balanced it's okay, go wild!

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

So what might happen if someone from a witch family had a child with a member of a witch family who had a different supernatural heritage then yours?

Life's Gonna Suck When You Grow Up... But Is It That Great Now?... Also I'm Skylark2 now.

Depends, does it follow basic genetics? Because if so recessive genes from either family may pop up or whichever family has dominate genes could manifest in the child.

If it instead creates a fusion you'll have to decide how. For instance, say a demon family (let's use Islamic jinn and have able to go invisible and travel long distances via magic) and a selkie family interbreed.

You now have

• seducing ability
• speaks to sea animals (?)
• water breathing (?)
• shape shifting

and

• invisiblity
• teleportation

How would you mix those? Maybe it works on a sort of "cancelation" basis, shape shifting and invisibility may cancel each other out leaving the others, or maybe it sort of works like "water breathing + teleportation" = ability to only travel from bodies of water.

...I could go on but I'll wait for feedback.

Ah, there goes my gnostic interpretation (well, I'm also grateful since that means more straightforward powers). Do Satan and Yaweh exist, or only one? Only powers of the same alignment can be potentially mixed, but even then it is unlikely that a child will manifest all of them at once.

My next post will deal with demons and their progeny, so be sure to have your fireproof vests at hand.

Good to know, so it's more of a genetics thing than a melting pot? Looking forward to demons, you won't be offended if I throw out suggestions afterwards, will you?

Yes, just because I am good at languages and music doesn't mean I'm good at translating Japanese while playing the Piano, and just because one of my parents has Perfect Pitch and the other is charismatic doesn't mean I will have both, or to the same degree. Offended by you throwing something out? No, because

• you're not the main targeted audience since you're not the OP
• you weren't the one asking for the content I'm producing.
• I am creating free content, and it is my own decision to do so

So don't worry about it.

Still doing research and homogenizing everything a bit. Just want to say that I'm glad to know that more than one person is interested in my content. ;)

edited 3rd Mar '11 9:54:34 AM by Theram