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Kareen needed to be eased into magic systems not being horrible
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Suze has a rapier. She hesitates, but hands it over. "It's magic, I don't know if you copy that."

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She hefts it and then hands it back. "As long as I can copy the part where it's a sharp chunk of metal, it's probably fine."

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"It wouldn't be too durable against anything with armor, if it weren't magic."

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"Fair. As I said, I don't know much about swords. Here." She finishes writing her pamphlet and offers it to her, then pulls a handful more out of her bag to distribute.

 

KAREEN MAGNUS'S IMPLAUSIBLE NOTEBOOK POWERS

Size Difference
At all times, you are exactly the right height. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It will usually keep any height changes fairly subtle, but at dramatic moments you might discover yourself able to shrink to the size of a bee or grow to the size of a giant.

Dressing Room
No matter how ridiculous your outfit, it will stay pristine and perfect, unless it would be more dramatic for you to be artfully bedraggled. You can use any quiet moment to yourself to quick-change your clothes, shoes, nails, and hairstyle into a completely new look. (You cannot change your hair length or colour this way without Perfect Hair, but you can braid or style it.)

Pocket Dimension
You can reach into your pocket, purse, backpack, or other storage accessory and pull out anything that can fit through its opening, even if it obviously could not fit in the pocket and even if you've never carried that object in that pocket before. In order to summon a specific object this way, it needs to belong to you; in order to duplicate an existing object this way, you need to have held or examined it at least once; in order to invent a new object this way, you need to be familiar enough with what you want that you could tell the real thing apart from a fake made with the same materials. So jewelry you make will be real gold or silver or platinum, but if you want to pull a refrigerator out of your backpack, you need to have a reasonably good idea of how a refrigerator works.
Note: This is where all the food comes from

Soundtrack
Your life has a soundtrack, expertly composed in a mix of musical styles that suits you aesthetically and personally. You can hear the soundtrack at all times, but are never directly impaired by it—you can still hear other things just as well, and can still rest normally, enjoy the quiet, enjoy other music, and so on. By listening to the soundtrack, you can discern a lot of information about what kind of situation you're in and how your choices are likely to play out. (The soundtrack will often either go quiet or fade into the background to complement other music playing around you, but might pipe up if it has something important to say.)

Soundboard
Your sense of hearing is clarified and enhanced. You have full control of the relative volume of all sounds you can hear, including your Soundtrack. Changing your audio balance feels intuitive and natural - and if a source of sound you turned down and forgot about has something to say, your Soundtrack can cue you to listen to it again. You can also enhance audio sources if you want to hear a distant or distorted noise more clearly, and you're better able to process and understand multiple people speaking at the same time.

Hollow Leg
Regardless of your diet and exercise habits, your body maintains the physique and silhouette you prefer. Lack of visible muscle never impairs your strength or endurance. As your preferences change, so will your body; you are no longer bound to the generous figure stipulated by Well Endowed.

Lightfoot 
You are perfectly, superhumanly graceful, with reflexes and agility to match. You can cross a field of snow without leaving a footprint, or stand on a slender branch without bending it, or jump so lightly that you soar through the air instead of falling.
Note: Has Hollow Leg as a prerequisite

Battle Angel
Somehow, you never get significantly injured in a fight, unless it's a very dramatic and plot-relevant fight in which case you might be glamorously wounded and pick up a cool new scar.

Battle Demon
You have an unerring intuition for gaps in an opponent's defenses, though it may be beyond your power to exploit them.

Battle Maiden
No matter what kind of fight you're getting in, you're always a match for even the most skilled opponent.

Omniglot
You learn languages insanely, ludicrously fast. You know exactly what any word said to you means, and you make strangely accurate guesses about how to phrase things you're trying to say. You never forget any grammar or vocabulary you learn.

Anything You Can Do
You learn implausibly quickly from friends, rivals, and love interests. If you have a personal connection to someone with a certain skill, talent, or expertise, you'll learn it five times faster than they did, or twenty times faster if they're actively trying to teach you. This applies even to forms of magic that you ordinarily shouldn't be able to learn.

Dragon Fairy Elf Witch
You can at any time discover previously unknown heritage from any type of being you encounter, even if this makes no sense or contradicts previously established descriptions of your family tree. You always get their powers without their drawbacks, unless the drawbacks are cool and dramatic. Any visible features of this heritage will appear at narratively appropriate moments and be cute, pretty, beautiful, or striking rather than awkward, weird, gross, or scary. This ability works even if the beings in question cannot reproduce with humans, or at all.

Snowglobe 
In worlds where people can have individual special powers, such as powered superheroes or personality-based magic, you find that you can pick up a power of your own even if you don't meet the local requirements. Drawbacks of these powers, such as uncontrollable power manifestations or a tendency to attract unwanted supernatural attention, will only apply if they are cool and dramatic.

Unleash The Magic
Any form of magic or other special ability you encounter can be yours, regardless of prerequisites, as long as you see it in action at least once. Your various powers and attributes will never conflict with each other or come with annoying drawbacks, and will often synergize in cool and interesting ways.
Note: How I acquired wizardry, although I expect Dragon Fairy Elf Witch would also have done it.

Inner World
The world of your imagination is a real, concrete, persistent place, which you can experience in parallel with the world around you—though you might find it easier to focus on one at a time. It makes an excellent setting for lucid dreams, telepathic conversations, and notetaking. Mental enhancements affect its size, depth, and detail; mental defenses guard it against intrusion. Your control over it will grow with time and practice.

Inner Housekeeping
You can understand and alter your emotions and other mental states by interacting with their manifestations in your Inner World. Some interactions will be more straightforward than others.

Closed Book
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly read your thoughts or feelings.

Indelible 
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly alter your thoughts or feelings.

Iron Will
You are immune to all forms of mental illusion, alteration, interference, or control. Even extreme torture, extended solitary confinement, advanced brainwashing techniques, and so on cannot touch you. You can be lonely but not cripplingly lonely. You can be upset but not traumatized. (You can choose to allow specific effects like communicative telepathy on a case-by-case basis.)

It Gets Better
You're going to be okay. Your mind and body may never be perfect, but they are yours, and cannot permanently be taken from you. In time you will heal from any injury, escape any imprisonment, and recover from any trauma; maybe not in exactly the ways you hoped, but always in ways you're okay with.

Disney Princess 
Animals are always friendly to you, especially the small cute ones. You can effectively tame any animal by feeding it and speaking gently to it.
Note: Prerequisite to Cotton Candy, which is why I have it.

Cotton Candy
The sharp edges of the world are blunted around you. That's not to say that nothing bad can happen, but that the worst things happen a lot less often, and happy endings large and small are much easier to come by. This effect can ripple outward to improve the lives of people you've never met.

Backchannel 
When you're talking to someone and you think you might not be getting through to each other, you can take a step back, look deep into your heart, and really try to understand where they're coming from, and it will just work and you'll know what they're trying to say and how sincere they are about it and have a good idea of what you should say if you want them to understand you right back.

You Can Teach Better
If you have a personal connection to someone, you can teach them anything you know; depending how motivated and engaged they are, they could learn it up to 110% as fast as you could have learned it using Anything You Can Do. If you consider them a good friend or otherwise especially close, this applies even to forms of magic that they ordinarily shouldn't be able to learn.

More Magic
Abilities you pick up through Unleash The Magic can be passed on to others. Unique per-person abilities from Snowglobe may be passed on either as a direct mirror of your own unique ability, or by sparking a unique ability in the recipient. The deeper your personal connection to the recipient, the easier it is for you to pass on abilities to them and the more potent the results will be.

Time Enough For Love
No matter how many people you want to date or be close friends with, you will somehow find the time to hang out with all of them and express your love and care. This power can only be used for relationship activities and not for anything else you might want to use the ability to be in two places at once for.

I Can Help Them 
Regardless of how lost to darkness someone is, your love can save them, if they're willing to accept it. This power will not directly alter someone's mind except to allow them to believe a true thing they couldn't have believed otherwise, or to change something that their pre-alteration and post-alteration selves would hypothetically be able to agree was good if they talked it over honestly with full access to each other's perspectives. In cases where the outcome of the hypothetical is uncertain, it will default to not making the change.

Ever Onward 
When you reach out to someone with love in your heart, whether to redeem them or just to connect as friends or lovers, your power can spark something in them. If they choose to believe in love and kindness with you, they can draw strength from your companionship, and pass that strength on to those they spark in turn. The effects of this power are subtle, but very far-reaching. Those you uplift with it, directly and indirectly, become better both at living their own best lives and at helping others.

True Love's Kiss
By kissing your true love, you can break any curse, heal any injury, and cure any illness. The same works in reverse.

Eternal Love
Those you love cannot be parted from you by anything short of their own uncoerced decision to leave. Anything else—war, politics, death, interdimensional travel—you will find a way to overcome and be reunited.

The Rescuer
If someone is dead who would want to be alive again, and you set your heart on returning them, you will find a way. It may have costs or difficulties or take a long time, but you will find it, and it will work.

Dream Together
When you truly miss someone who truly misses you, you will see each other again in your dreams. If dreaming is not possible, a daydream, meditation session, or moment of wistful yearning will suffice.

Providential Parenthood 
You can only have children when you're really ready for it, or if you actively and specifically decide to.

Signature Style
You are now locked in to a single personal style. It can be an established fashion genre, or just the expression of your personal taste in clothing, but it must be something that resonates with you narratively and personally. It will never change, and your clothing, hair, makeup, and other styling will always conform to it, no matter how hard you or others try to dress or decorate you differently. You may find yourself at peace with this style in the long term, or not.
Note: Most of the powers on this page consume "points;" this one grants them. My style is an eye motif.

There's Another One
You are not the only vessel of the Spirit. You might meet someone else with similar powers to yours; you might even meet more than one. Your susceptibility to one another's powers will be governed by the narrative.
Note: This one is why I had any hope that handing someone a sparkly notebook might work to summon the notebook that empowered me.

Nullified 
Any aspects of your powers that would affect the minds of others in ways they might not like will instead not do that. 

Grimm's Fairy Tales
Bad things can and will still happen to you in particular.
Note: Also a point-granting option

Great Responsibility
When someone calls out to you for help, you can hear it no matter how far away you are, and you know exactly how they feel.
Note: If a mal is trying to eat you, and I am in a different part of the building, I can't promise to get there in time. But you might as well try.

 

Her handwriting is remarkably elegant, without being harder to read. Lightfoot helps with manual dexterity, too.

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Bella starts reading this and then before she's gotten very far she pulls out the sparkly purple notebook again and writes PLEASE?! beside the date, waits a beat, and puts it away again.

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"So, mals aren't 'people', and your Indelible thing says 'people'."

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"Indelible does. Iron Will doesn't."

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"True, just, if there is a loophole you want to find it now and not at two a.m."

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"What time zone are you coming from, Kareen?"

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"Uh--it was late morning when I was locked in the warehouse, but I'm not sure how long I was in there for."

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"Almost lunchtime, here, so... you'll maybe want to borrow some kind of stimulant off somebody to duplicate before your all-nighter, if you don't have anything already in the bag of tricks, there's coffee but it's not good."

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"I have had coffee. Among other things. But I appreciate the thought. Why is the food here bad enough that everyone is descending ravenously on my cornucopia powers?"

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"It's a nutrient slurry lightly illusioned to pretend to be bad cafeteria food. There is also a weird vending machine but it's as likely to get you something that expired in 1967 as an edible candy bar."

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"...I...see. Well, I can certainly fill this gap." 

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"We appreciate this about you."

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"A lot!"

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She goes back to pulling food out of her bag. "I presume there's a reason why the food situation is so dire."

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"Any channel by which anything enters the Scholomance, other than the Void which can by special purpose enchantment offer us books, can allow mals in. So channels have to be as few, far between, and small as possible. This is why we don't have adults, Internet, sunshine, correspondence, or more than a very limited weight allowance of luggage when we come in. Nutrient slurry can enter by a very small aperture. Better food illusions are possible and every now and then someone splurges on one but the school is generally running on a very tight mana budget, and so are we."

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"I have a spell to make the water taste better but Poppy says if I cast it I will deserve to have my toes gnawed off in the night."

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"So I have been informed that mals exist and some of them do non-physical harm but I think it's time to learn more things about mals." 

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"You may choose to rely on your powers here but the reason we all have short hair is so mals can't grab it or hide in it; anyone here with long hair is showing off or stupid or both. You can see an illusion of the graduation hall, which is full of all kinds of mals, in the mal studies auditorium, should you so wish. Some mals are only quasi-real, or made of information, or capable of drawing out quite elaborate ritual diagrams, or insubstantial, or otherwise exotic, but the normal case is that there's some kind of monster with teeth or tentacles or claws or pseudopods or shapeshifting powers so they can split the difference, and it does physical harm till it kills you or receives physical harm till you kill it. Mals come in an enormous variety of sizes ranging from grub to elephantine. Agglos are technically a kind of mal but they do not take mana against resistance, and instead live off the leftover intent in discarded and scrap objects like broken-off pencil lead or nail clippings or lost hair ties, which they attach to themselves like decorator crabs."

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"That is very useful information to have but also I would like to know what the general mal background situation is. Is it better in here, or worse but the magic infinite library is worth it? Fatalities have been mentioned; what are the ballpark death rates? Over what demographics? Where do they come from, do they have their own ecosystem or are they a byproduct of something else or are they an end-state of maleficing, I can't help but notice a plausible etymological connection."

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"The graduation hall is very bad, but the rest of the school is better - for our age group, little kids are less tasty and grownups are more dangerous - than anywhere else we could be."

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"Most enclavers and about a quarter of indies, in the Scholomance, live. Outside the rate's like one in twenty making it, but that's indies, I don't know what kinds of statistics an enclave who has to keep, say, a diabetic, home, might pull."

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"Some mals are in fact made or descended from the creations of wizards, who might or might not be maleficers in the technical sense - in some cases we know the details, like chayaenas were supposed to be exciting big game hunting targets and the guy they were commissioned from jazzed them up; quattrias have useful alchemical properties if you can keep them from escaping while simultaneously starving them. Some of them might just be the magical equivalent of wild animals; I think that's likely for agglos and a few extinct kinds that may've been outcompeted by more aggressive types. Many mals will eat each other."

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