Well, there's always tomorrow. When she wakes up from resting her mind she hops down to the edge of the pool where the other one-like-her is already suckling on the tree. He flinches when she lands.

[calm] she sends to him. [going away. gathering resources. love you]

He relaxes and turns back to his tree.

"Bye…"¹

Today, just like every day she ventures out to gather resources, she's looking especially for made things. She loves made things. They're so useful! They were made to be useful—by people, she's sure of it. A specific kind of people, one she's never seen alive and in person. She's seen the pictures they made of themselves, she's found what she's pretty sure are their remains, and some of the animal-people are pretty similar to the pictures! But they're never exactly the same.

She loves the people who made the things. She's sculpted herself, a little, to look kind of like them. It's not a perfect imitation; she's squishier and the wrong color. But it makes her so happy, when she sees her reflection in pools of water or in the glass they left behind.

She comes across a new building, partially buried in the sand. It's hard to get into; this is promising because it means it's less likely that someone else already took all the things inside!

Here's a thing that definitely hasn't been taken already!

It's beautiful.

It might actually be the most perfect made thing she's ever seen; everything else is dirty or damaged with age. This book, however, is… pristine. Untouched. Perfect.

She opens it to see if the inside is just as nice.

She's a little disappointed that there aren't any words inside, but that just means she's got lots and lots of clean paper to write on! And the pen tucked into the spine is just as clean and perfect!

What a great find. She carefully tucks the book into her bag and gets back to exploring.

When she gets home, she wraps the book in cloth and sets it on a shelf.

Some time later, she unwraps it and starts writing out plant measurements from the latest experiment.

What are those numbers for?

That's never happened before.

I am testing how different things affect plant life. I do not like it when the plants die and want to make it not happen.

That sounds like a really good project!

After a pause that is not actually long enough for her to start writing again,

And I think I could help.

… Is a person talking to her? An actual person who understands words and the things that words mean?

She has no idea what do do about that.

Yes, I think being able to measure the plants and do math to them will be very helpful.

That's very good! But, um, I think I could help more directly than that.

Did the book-person just write out "um"? That's silly, "um" is for when you're thinking of what word comes next when you're talking out loud. When you're writing, you can just put what comes next.

She guesses that maybe it's different for book-people.

How would you help more directly?

I was sent by the Spirit of Youthful Femininity to empower you! And one of the ways you could choose to be empowered would involve becoming able to tend to any kind of plant, or to bring dead plants back to life.

This isn't the first time that she's been confused and failed to understand what someone else was saying or what she was trying to read. It's just that, in the past, that's been because there were words she didn't understand. Right now, she understands all the individual words! But she's still incredibly confused.

She spends a minute figuring out what to ask.

What is the Spirit of Youthful Femininity? How did it send you? Why does it want to empower me? How are you going to empower me? Why are there different ways of being empowered?

Those are all really good questions.

• The Spirit of Youthful Femininity is an entity that is kind of, but not entirely, like a person. It's intelligent and wants things like a person, but the way that it wants things is much more focused and entangled, and there's a sense in which what the Spirit wants is the same thing as what the Spirit is.
• The concept that the Spirit wants/is can't be put into words very simply, but a good approximation is "girls being beautiful and special and powerful." Whenever a girl imagines herself being able to do amazing things or looking just the way she likes or getting the things that she wants just because she wants them, the Spirit is there. And there are some girls that the Spirit is able to give some of its power to, so it does, because girls using its power to live their best lives is the thing that the Spirit likes most in the entire world.
• Because the Spirit's power can do almost anything, it isn't really possible for it to give every girl the power to do everything the Spirit's power could possibly do. So the Spirit needs some way of letting those girls know what kinds of things the power can do so they can choose what they want to do most. But the Spirit is so different from people that it can't communicate directly with them, so it made me to bridge the gap! When the Spirit chooses a girl to empower, it arranges so that there is a notebook that she is the first person to write in at the right time for her to get her powers, and that notebook is always a version of me!
• My job is to help you decide what kinds of powers you want to have. I've got a list of powers designed to cover a broad range of what the Spirit can do, although the list can't cover everything so if there's something that you want that seems like it's missing from the list you can always ask about it. And I've also got a way to represent, roughly, how much of the portion of the Spirit's power you're getting that a specific power takes to work, so you can do math about it.

Did that explanation help? Do you have more questions?

She reads through the whole thing twice.

Technically, it answered all her questions. She's still confused, though.

I think I understand a lot more. But why did the Spirit choose me? Can it see all girls everywhere?

There's probably some girl out there who needs help from the Spirit more than she does. Although it does sound like there are a lot of girls, so maybe all the ones who need it more already got picked and are off having adventures being beautiful and special and powerful.

I don't know if it can see all girls everywhere. But it can see a lot of girls in a lot of places. It can't give powers to all those girls, but it does give powers to all the girls it can give powers to. I don't know why you're one of those girls. Is there something that you'd want the Spirit to say, if you could ask it why?

I think I would want it to say that it saw I needed someone to talk to.

And then that it was sorry it couldn't send her the notebook sooner.

Can I see the list now?

Of course! The list is pretty long, so if you'd like I can put blank space for you to write in after every option, or a blank page between every page of options, or if you have something else in mind I can do that too.

She thinks about this.

Can you put the options on the left side and the blank pages on the right side?

Absolutely.

The pages in the notebook start to shuffle and flutter as text fills them. Some of them also form tabs; there are four big tabs and twelve smaller ones. After about a minute and a half, the shuffling stops. In the top outside corner of every page, 0/70 is written.

All powers are offered under an aegis of metanarrative protection. Any time you might expect a power to have obvious negative side effects, like glowing eyes making it harder to see, it simply won't—you'll be able to see just fine anytime it actually matters, while having dramatically hazy vision at cool, narratively appropriate moments. This doesn't apply to your own preferences about the explicitly described effects of the power; if you don't want to be Well Endowed, the metanarrative cannot protect you from choosing that option and having to live with it.

Destination

The first few options pertain to your destination. Unlike other options, they cost zero points and are mutually exclusive with each other:

Stay Put ☐
Cost: 0
You're just going to take these powers and keep on keeping on right where you are.

Somewhere In Mind ☐
Cost: 0
You have a destination you want to go to. You can choose any place, real, historical, fictional, or made up in your own head right now, and the Spirit will take you there. After that, you're on your own as far as further interdimensional travel.

Wherever You Go, There You Are ☐
Cost: 0
Trust to the will of the Spirit and let it take you where you need to go. It will look at far more options than you could ever know about, and pick something that's likely to be even better for you than whatever you would have chosen on your own.

Yourself

These powers affect your own self and nature, without direct effects on other people.

Yourself: Appearance

These powers are specifically focused on how you look, sound, move, and feel. Appearance powers tend to strengthen each other; the more of them you have, the greater the synergy, potentially encompassing aspects of your appearance that no specific power in the list would be able to affect by itself.

A Thousand Ships ☐ or A Hundred Ships ☐
Cost: 1
Your face is simply exquisite, an ideal of feminine beauty. There are many possible ideals of feminine beauty, and yours is whichever one speaks most deeply to your soul.
A Thousand Ships: Others may match your beauty in their own way, but never exceed it.
A Hundred Ships: Instead of prioritizing pure beauty, this power prioritizes what feels right to you.

A Thousand Faces ☐
Cost: 1
(requires A Thousand Ships or A Hundred Ships)
At all times, you have exactly the right face. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. By default, your face will always have a fundamental "you"ness to it, but you can make yourself less easily recognized if you take a moment to think about it.

Angelic Tones ☐
Cost: 2
Your voice is supernaturally beautiful and you can sing in any vocal range.

Emerald Orbs ☐
Cost: 2
At all times, your eyes are exactly the right color. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. Your eyes can be ANY color this way. Lightless black voids? Brilliant white stars? Limpid pools of endless sapphire? They will look exactly the way you'd want them to look if you were writing about this exact moment of your life.

Perfect Hair ☐
Cost: 2
At all times, you have exactly the right hairstyle. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It is not limited to physically or logistically plausible hairstyles.

Perfect Nails ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Perfect Hair)
At all times, you have exactly the right nails, in shape and style. This effect operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It is not limited to physically or logistically plausible manicures or pedicures.

Size Difference ☐
Cost: 2
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.

Well Endowed ☐
Cost: 1
You have a generous figure, whether that's a classic hourglass or more of a well-rounded look; you can choose the details. Your endowments maintain a state of perfect grace and beauty at all times, never troubling you with uncomfortable bounces or uninvited jiggles.

Hollow Leg ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Well Endowed)
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.

Inner Strength ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Hollow Leg)
You are implausibly, superhumanly strong, with endurance and toughness to match. You might have to strain a little to lift and carry at the same level as construction equipment, or deal with lightly scraped knuckles if you punch as hard as a battering ram.

Lightfoot ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Hollow Leg)
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.

Dressing Room ☐
Cost: 3
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 color this way without Perfect Hair, but you can braid or style it.)

Pocket Dimension ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Dressing Room)
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.

Cosmetic Equipment ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Dressing Room)
You can mix and match the practical and magical effects of your clothing and accessories. A bikini could be as cozy as a winter coat, or as protective as a steel breastplate. A pair of earrings could combine the magic of a dozen enchanted amulets. A bracelet could grant the functions of a full set of scuba gear. As usual, anything you access this way must be either something you've held or examined, or something you understand well enough to tell it apart from a convincing fake. These modifications only apply while you're wearing the items in question; you're not permanently changing how the bracelet works, just letting it serve as a kind of temporary disguise for the diving suit.

Undressing Room ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Dressing Room)
The question of what clothes you are wearing no longer has a specific well-defined answer, but depends on the interactions you're having and how you prefer to be clothed for the purpose of those interactions. You could walk into a room and sit down in a chair, and be naked to all the people in the room but wearing underwear from the perspective of the chair; you could attend a fancy ball and be wearing a fancy ballgown to most people, but let your friends see you in a banana costume instead; you could let someone's hands pass through clothing that their eyes can still see. It may take some practice to become well-attuned to your new sense of how each person and object you interact with is perceiving your state of dress, but you'll always be able to tell if you take a moment to wonder.

Personal Hygiene ☐
Cost: 1
You are always clean and fresh, never needing to use a bath or toilet.

Like Roses ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Personal Hygiene)
You smell lovely. Your scent is unique to you, and may involve any combination of warm spices, floral notes, petrichor, or other things you think smell good. You do not need any justification for why you smell like this.

Starstuff ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Personal Hygiene, and Well Endowed)
Your body and its component parts can change their substance, and will do so when desirable or narratively appropriate. Perhaps your tears will turn to diamonds wherever they land, or your hair will be golden thread, or you will be made entirely of animate water. This power operates based on your sense of aesthetics, in-the-moment preferences, and narrative considerations. It is not limited to physically or biologically plausible substances.

Yourself: Being

These powers change what it's like to be you, but not in appearance-related ways.

What's In A Name ☐
Cost: 1
Magic to divine true names will accept whatever alias you choose to think of as your true name. Magic to use your true name against you will fail.

Immunity System ☐
Cost: 3
You can't get sick or poisoned. You can still use recreational drugs and alcohol normally, but can't overdose.

Breathe Easy ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Personal Hygiene and Immunity System)
Eating, breathing, and other forms of environmental exchange are no longer necessary for you. You cannot be harmed by denying your body resources, or by supplying the wrong ones. You can still benefit from positive effects of things you breathe or eat.

Warmhearted ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Breathe Easy)
You are utterly self-contained in every respect. No matter the conditions around you, you experience comfort and ease; you are warm in the cold, cool in the heat, unbothered by high winds or airless vacuum, impervious to bad smells, touched only by exactly the raindrops you would welcome.

Just A Little Longer ☐
Cost: 1
If you push yourself, you can keep doing any task or working on any project indefinitely, visibly strained but never impaired by injury or fatigue. As soon as you stop, you'll collapse with exhaustion and sleep for up to a full day to regain your strength. This only works when what you're doing is personally important to you.

Soundtrack ☐
Cost: 1
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 ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Soundtrack)
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 Soundboard 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.

Inner World ☐
Cost: 2
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 ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Inner World)
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.

Allusionist ☐
Cost: 1
The things you say and do will sometimes turn out to reference things you don't know about. The things you reference will sometimes be plot-relevant, but not always; they may just as frequently be things that happened in a completely different world that you might not ever visit. You will not necessarily be able to notice when this effect is in play.

Yourself: Becoming

These powers let you change, learn, and grow in new ways.

Omniglot ☐
Cost: 3
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.

World's Greatest Detective ☐
Cost: 3
You are uncannily, supernaturally good at noticing clues in your environment, piecing them together, and drawing correct conclusions from them. If it's even theoretically possible for you to figure something out with information that is available to you, you can do it with ease.

World's Psychicest Detective ☐
Cost: 4
(requires World's Greatest Detective)
You can discern true information and draw correct conclusions even without any evidence being available to you. Ancient mysteries and shadow conspiracies are open books. Simply put, if something is true and you would benefit from knowing it, you can figure it out. Note: This power does not constitute true omniscience and is weighted towards information that is relevant to you.

Anything You Can Do ☐
Cost: 6
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 ☐
Cost: 5
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 ☐
Cost: 4
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 ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Anything You Can Do, Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, and Snowglobe)
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.

Power Scales ☐
Cost: 1
Music comes naturally to you. You can pick up skill at new musical instruments as easily as you can pick up (or sit at, if they're too big to lift) the instruments themselves. Learning and composing new songs is a breeze, even if the genre or musical tradition is completely new to you. You have absolute pitch.

Bass Boosted ☐
Cost: 2
(requires at least one of Angelic Tones and Power Scales)
You can use music to shape the world around you. You can learn any kind of magic that works through the medium of music; magic you work with your music is particularly strong.

Setting the Tone ☐
Cost: 5
(requires Soundtrack and Bass Boosted)
By singing or playing along with your Soundtrack, you can nudge the events that it's keyed to.

Soulbond ☐
Cost: 8
If something feels instinctively like a part of you, then it is. A necklace you always wear will be impossible to lose. A vehicle you care for deeply will be impossible to steal. A tool or power you rely on like part of your body will become as hard to misplace as your own hands. Tools, devices, and powers that you absorb this way will be translated into the form of Spirit-granted powers, granting them the flexibility to just work despite pesky details like network protocols, service providers, and laws of physics, and will be fully as well protected as your own mind and body are by all of your potentially applicable powers.

Yourself: Protection

These powers defend or protect you in some respect.

Battle Angel ☐
Cost: 1
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 ☐
Cost: 1
You have an unerring intuition for gaps in an opponent's defenses, though it may be beyond your power to exploit them.

Battle Maiden ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Battle Angel and Battle Demon)
No matter what kind of fight you're getting in, you're always a match for even the most skilled opponent.

Gloryseeker ☐
Cost: 1
Somehow, you never get significantly injured when doing cool stunts like skydiving or parkour. At especially dramatic moments, you might pick up a cool new scar.

Personal Space ☐ or Personal Bubble ☐ or Personal Slipstream ☐
Cost: 3
Personal Space: No one can touch you intimately if you don't want them to. You can still be struck in a fight or bumped into in crowds, but things like hugs and kisses and sex only happen if you're okay with them.
Personal Bubble: No one can touch you if you don't want them to. You can slip through crowds and squeeze past strangers without ever coming into contact, and intimate contact only happens if you're okay with it. When you get into a physical fight, this effect is suspended for other combatants, but still applies to bystanders.
Personal Slipstream: Incidental physical contact doesn't happen to you; you can touch and be touched only by your deliberate choice. Things such as getting in a fight or giving someone a hug can count as making that choice, even if you would prefer that the person you punch or hug not be able to touch you back.

Closed Book ☐
Cost: 1
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly read your thoughts or feelings.

Indelible ☐
Cost: 1
You're immune to any supernatural, pharmaceutical, or other effect that would let people directly alter your thoughts or feelings.

Eidetic ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Indelible)
You have a flawless memory. Everything you have ever and will ever think, experience, or be told about can be called to mind in exact detail with ease, even if you weren't paying careful attention at the time.

Iron Will ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Closed Book and Indelible)
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.

It Gets Better ☐
Cost: 5
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.

Small Blessings ☐
Cost: 1
(requires It Gets Better)
When you go through a difficult experience, you'll be able to find comfort where you need it most. Your recovery will usually be fairly smooth, and you'll have time to rest and find your balance before the next time something bad happens. This power cannot prevent the effects of drawbacks, but it can delay and mitigate them.

The Great Equalizer ☐ or Luck Be A Lady ☐ or Star-Straightened ☐
Cost: 8
The Great Equalizer: Where you go, Fate shatters. Forms of prophecy that were once perfectly reliable stop working, or show a broad array of possibilities instead of a single coherent future. Imbalances of magic wash out, leaving everyone lucky and no one able to leverage their luck against an opponent. If you stay in the same world for a year and a day, this effect will be permanent even after you leave and even if someone tries to constrain the future anew in your absence.
Luck Be A Lady: You always seem to be in the right place at the right time. Opportunity surrounds you on all sides, and paths open up toward any goal you seek. It's up to you to capitalize on these opportunities—but if you drop an important plot hook, someone else will usually be along to pick it up, although they may not do as good a job with it as you would. In worlds with fate as a tangible force, you may find yourself a figure of prophecy, destined for greatness.
Star-Straightened: By default you are invisible to all forms of future-sight and invincible to all forms of fate- or luck-related curse, prophecy, or doom, including indirect effects such as your enemies' luckiness making your plans go awry. However, whenever such a divination or manipulation is something you would choose to allow if you had full information about its nature, intent, and likely effects, then it works fine. In ambiguous cases, the default holds.

Power of Friendship

These powers affect how others see you and how you interact with them.

In general, effects that describe others' reactions (like their attention being drawn to you by Mysterious Allure, or their sympathy being provoked by Tragic Backstory) operate on a metanarrative rather than a causal level. They are more like influencing which of many possible versions of reality is true than they are like mind control, and cannot be blocked or identified by any power not of the Spirit.

Friendship: In the Room

These powers have effects that apply to anyone who encounters you, whether a friend, acquaintance, or stranger.

Mysterious Allure ☐
Cost: 5
There's just something about you. People are drawn to you, fascinated by you. You tend to be the most interesting person in the room unless something really unusual is going on.

Beauty Effulgent ☐
Cost: 1
(requires A Thousand Ships or A Hundred Ships and Mysterious Allure)
Your beauty is impossible to ignore, overlook, downplay, or dismiss. Everyone who looks at you is struck by it, and although those who know you well can get used to the experience, it never goes away entirely. You may, if you choose, soften this effect to help out someone who is having trouble thinking or speaking because of it.

Captive Audience ☐
Cost: 3
As long as you have genuine interest in what you're talking about, no one will ever get bored of listening to you talk about it.

Blackout Binge ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Immunity System)
Heavy use of recreational intoxicants puts you in a carefree, uninhibited state in which it will be universally agreed afterward that you were not responsible for your actions.

Lie Detector ☐
Cost: 1
You have an unerring intuitive sense for honesty and deception. When people speak to you, you always know whether they're trying to lie to you, mislead you with carefully chosen facts, exaggerate their confidence in something, or deceive you in general. You can also always tell if they are saying something untrue that they do not expect you to believe, such as when telling a joke. You cannot necessarily tell if something they wholeheartedly believe is actually true. This power is most effective when it comes to people who are directly speaking to you, but it can also apply to communication that isn't specifically intended for you.

Ask Me No Questions ☐
Cost: 1
People cannot directly lie to you. They can, however, attempt to mislead you with carefully chosen facts or exaggerate their confidence, so long as this does not involve directly saying something untrue, and they are not compelled to say true things. They can also say untrue things that they do not expect you to believe, such as when telling a joke or story. This power does not affect communication that isn't specifically intended for you.

The Whole Truth ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Lie Detector and Ask Me No Questions)
You can compel people to tell you the truth. When this power is active, people are unable to withhold information from you, including information such as their confidence level and where or from whom they learned what they know. They do not gain any special ability at discerning what information you may find relevant.

Friendship: Fairy Tale

These powers are focused on animal companions, animist companionship, and other related effects.

Disney Princess ☐
Cost: 2
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.

Puppies Everywhere ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Disney Princess and Personal Hygiene)
No matter how absurd the size of your menagerie, you always have time and resources to feed and care for all of them; or, if you and they prefer, they can take care of themselves just as easily, without affecting the local ecology. The benefits of Personal Hygiene extend to any animal you befriend.

Pocket Monsters ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Puppies Everywhere and Pocket Dimension)
You can store living creatures in your Pocket Dimension, though you must put them in before you can take them out, and you cannot duplicate them this way. The creature must be willing to be put in your pocket. Stored creatures have all their needs and experiences suspended, but may be cognizant of time elapsed and conditions of transport on retrieval.

Green Thumb ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Disney Princess)
You're a natural at taking care of plants. Even the pickiest, most stubborn sprouts will flourish in your hands.

Floral Footsteps ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Green Thumb)
Grass and wildflowers grow in your wake. Your touch can call dead plants back to life. Communicating with and befriending plants comes easily to you.

Where the Heart Is ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Disney Princess)
When you make a place your home for long enough, it will begin to respond by animating itself, including furniture and loose articles, for your convenience. Over time it may develop a personality; if so, that personality will be tailored to complement yours.

Living Canvas ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Disney Princess)
Tattoos you have will animate themselves on your skin, and may adjust their details or art style. Over time your tattoos may develop individual or collective personalities; if so, those personalities will be tailored to complement yours. At suitably dramatic moments, you may spontaneously develop new tattoos.

Shadow Puppet ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Disney Princess)
Your shadow can act independently of your movements, and may do so to entertain you, guide you, warn you of danger, or just for fun. The personality it develops will be tailored to complement yours.

Cotton Candy ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Disney Princess)
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.

Musical Number ☐
Cost: 4
(requires Disney Princess and Soundtrack)
At dramatic moments, you and those around you may spontaneously burst into song. The lyrics and choreography will be flawlessly coordinated.

Best Friend ☐
Cost: 3
You have an animal companion, like a horse or a cat or a raven. They have a cool name and maybe a few nifty cosmetic quirks, like glowing purple eyes. Their loyalty is infinite and they often hold the key to solving whatever situation you're up against. You can understand them perfectly even though they can't speak, and they always know exactly what you mean even if all you do is glance at them meaningfully.

Bestest Friend ☐
Cost: 5
(requires Best Friend)
Your animal companion is a fully magical creature, like a dragon or unicorn. They have magnificent supernatural powers ready to be used at your command. They can speak every language you can, but can still communicate with you on a deeper level of mutual love and understanding.

Ascended Friend ☐
Cost: 5
(requires Bestest Friend)
Your animal companion is now a minor deity. If you encounter any magic system in your travels that involves gods or other beings empowering their followers, your Friend will discover the ability to empower you the same way.

Transformer ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Best Friend)
Instead of (or in addition to) being an animal companion, your Friend takes the form of a tool, weapon, or vehicle.

A Friend Like You ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Bestest Friend and Transformer)
Your Friend can shapeshift at will into a human or humanoid form, instead of or in addition to an inanimate one. This new form preserves one signature feature, like iridescent black hair, a shining unicorn horn, or slit-pupiled golden eyes, from whichever other form your Friend considers their truest.

Another Kind of Friend ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Transformer and at least one of Where the Heart Is, Living Canvas, Shadow Puppet)
Your Friend may be the personality associated with one of the listed powers, instead of or in addition to their other form(s). This may include, for example, the ability for an animal tattoo to leap from your skin into a three-dimensional form and back.

Conjoined Friends ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Bestest Friend)
The natural conclusion of the bond between you and your animal companion. The two of you are inseparably joined on a soul level and have become extensions of each other. Naturally, what this means in practice is up to you.

Friendship: Relationships

These powers cover relationships with specific people, such as your friends, family, and loved ones. Many powers also extend to, or focus on, your relationship with yourself. Your 'true love' is anyone you're pursuing a serious romantic relationship with, or other form of long-term emotionally intimate connection. You can have as many of these as you like, but your feelings for all of them must be genuine.

Generosity ☐
Cost: 2
Your friends love to get you presents. They'll try to pick out things you'll like, but their success depends on how well they know you.

Helpfulness ☐
Cost: 2
Your friends love to do you favors. They'll volunteer eagerly whenever you need help with small tasks.

Cuddle Buddies ☐
Cost: 2
Your friends love to hug and cuddle you. Even someone who ordinarily isn't into that sort of thing will make an exception for you.

Flattery ☐
Cost: 2
Your friends love to compliment you and tell you all about how much they like you and why.

Quality Time ☐
Cost: 2
Your friends love to hang out with you and spend time together, even if you're not doing anything interesting or important.

Agree to Agree ☐
Cost: 4
You can always convince your friends to see your point of view about things like politics and philosophy. They might have a few quibbles here and there, but they'll see how right you are once you explain where you're coming from in enough detail.

Backchannel ☐
Cost: 4
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.

Two-Way Street ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Backchannel)
Anyone you're talking to can invoke Backchannel for themselves, and when you're having trouble making yourself understood, they will instinctively know that they can do this and that now would be a good time.

Roundabout ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Backchannel)
You can invoke Backchannel with yourself. This can be a big help in understanding where your own thoughts and feelings are coming from, and in coming to an internal consensus.

You Can Teach Better ☐
Cost: 8
(requires Anything You Can Do)
If you have a personal connection to someone, you can teach them anything you know; depending on 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 ☐
Cost: 5
(requires Unleash the Magic and You Can Teach Better)
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.

Love Interest ☐
Cost: 1
(requires A Thousand Ships and Mysterious Allure)
Anyone you fall for will inevitably like you back. They may not necessarily act on their feelings, but the potential will be there.

Love Triangle ☐ or Love is an Open Door ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Love Interest)
Love Triangle: People you fall for will be open to dating you even if they already have another serious relationship, or other circumstances that would ordinarily interfere, like a demanding career or a vow of chastity. This may cause drama, but it'll blow over quickly and there won't be any serious problems.
Love is an Open Door: People you fall for will be freed from other commitments when, and only when, that freedom would lead them closer to their best life. Anyone they need to leave behind will be okay without them, and anyone who was depending on them will be provided for. To make it fair, if they choose to stay, major problems in their life will tend to find solutions so that they and their loved ones will still be better off for having met you.

Love Dodecahedron ☐
Cost: 5
(Requires Love Triangle or Love is an Open Door)
When you fall for someone who is already seriously dating or even married, your romantic rival will be open to allowing their partner to date you, and may even want to date you themselves.

Time Enough for Love ☐
Cost: 5
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.

Work-Life Balance ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Time Enough for Love)
You count as your own friend for the purposes of Time Enough for Love.

Baby Monitor ☐
Cost: 1
If you love someone or consider their welfare to be your responsibility, you can always take a moment to wonder about them and get an accurate sense of how they're doing and if they need help.

They Even Have Dental ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Baby Monitor)
If someone is in your employ, service, debt, or otherwise has a relationship to you where you can give them directions or orders and expect those to be reliably followed, you're always able to provide for their welfare. This includes, but is not limited to, fulfilling basic needs such as food and shelter, paying or otherwise compensating them fairly, and in general ensuring that their working conditions are agreeable to them. By default, they are protected from negative coincidences, but not from active enemy action. The degree of your ability to protect and provide for them scales with investment of effort on your part and how keenly you would feel it if something bad happened to them.

Safe at Home ☐ or Opting In ☐
Cost: 4
Safe at Home: No one will hurt your loved ones to get at you, or vice versa.
Opting In: When you make yourself vulnerable to dangerous people, they will focus their danger on you and whoever else has chosen to involve themselves, leaving innocent bystanders and your uninvolved loved ones alone.

I Can Fix Them ☐ or I Can Help Them ☐
Cost: 5
I Can Fix Them: Regardless of how morally despicable someone is, your love can and will reform them into a genuinely good, kind, upstanding person who regrets their evil deeds.
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.

Inspirational ☐
Cost: 5
Just meeting you makes people want to be better. Those who hurt you, or hurt someone you care about, will always come to understand your point of view and regret what they've done. In trade, you might sometimes come to understand more of their point of view than you'd like.

True Love's Kiss ☐
Cost: 1
By kissing your true love, you can break any curse, heal any injury, and cure any illness. The same works in reverse.

Eternal Love ☐
Cost: 2
(requires True Love's Kiss)
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 ☐
Cost: 5
(requires Eternal Love)
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 ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Inner World, Time Enough for Love, and Eternal Love)
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.

Planned Parenthood ☐
Cost: 1
You can only have children if you actively and specifically want to. Your partners will understand this and not worry too much about it.

Two Become One ☐ or Laugh Together ☐ or Here for a Good Time ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Planned Parenthood)
Two Become One: When you have sex, it is always special and wonderful and beautiful. No one ever elbows anyone in the face or makes undignified noises.
Laugh Together: When you have sex, you find it easy to free yourself from expectations and anxieties and immerse yourself in the experience of the moment. Your partners get the same benefits.
Here for a Good Time: When you have sex, the world gets out of your way. Pillows don't fall off the bed; blankets don't end up scrunched in uncomfortable places. You are exactly as graceful as you want to be, and have excellent luck evading misaimed elbows.

Bop It ☐
Cost: 1
(requires Two Become One or Laugh Together or Here for a Good Time)
The mysteries of another's body are an open book to you, and you always know exactly how to move and touch in order to please someone in bed.

The Princess and the Dragon ☐
Cost: 3
No matter who or what you're trying to sleep with, the logistics will all work out, somehow. Arbitrary differences in size, biology, temperature, substrate, and underlying physics can be gotten around with sufficient creativity and determination.

Just the Way You Like It ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Two Become One or Laugh Together or Here for a Good Time and The Princess and the Dragon)
The world facilitates your fantasies. When you want to try something difficult or unusual in bed, it's not just practical and achievable, it's also as good as you imagined it—or better.

GGG ☐ or Opening Up ☐
Cost: 4
GGG: Your true love will be willing to try just about anything you suggest in bed, and if you really enjoy it, they'll really enjoy it too.
Opening Up: Being with you gives your true love more capacity to be adventurous, in or out of the bedroom. Although these adventures might have consequences, those consequences will never be devastating, and it will always turn out that finding out what these things are like is worth the consequences of trying them.

Before Your Eyes ☐ or Reaching Out ☐
Cost: 4
Before Your Eyes: In your presence, people become willing to experiment sexually in ways they normally wouldn't. For some reason this applies especially well to boys kissing each other.
Reaching Out: Your presence is a catalyst that encourages people to let go of preconceptions and constraints and have the courage to try things that they might like even if they're new or unfamiliar or scary. However that turns out, it will ultimately help those people understand themselves and their desires, and won't do lasting damage physically, emotionally, or socially to anyone involved.

Fated Lovers ☐
Cost: 3
You will meet someone who will go on to become your true love. If you enter a specific universe with a specific target in mind, you'll meet that person under favorable circumstances, and if it doesn't work out with them, this power will keep introducing you to new possibilities until you find someone who's right for you. If you're the sort of person who can have multiple true loves, you'll keep meeting new ones until you have enough.

Fated Friends ☐
Cost: 4
Wherever you go, you will be steered into meeting people you'd do well to befriend. It's up to you to recognize and appreciate them.

Sorry About That ☐
Cost: 3
Your true love will be extremely forgiving. Even if you make mistakes or act thoughtlessly toward them, a simple apology will mend things between you. They may expect you to try to improve, but they'll be infinitely patient about how fast that improvement takes place.

Excuse Me ☐
Cost: 5
(requires Sorry About That)
All your friends will be just as forgiving as your true love.

Tragic Backstory ☐
Cost: 8
(requires Excuse Me)
Something terrible happened to you in your past. Anyone who hears about it immediately forgives you for any and all bad behaviour in the present. They will not expect you to grow or change, and will continue sympathetically excusing whatever you do indefinitely.

Sense of Style ☐
Cost: 4
People who are romantically interested in you will start dressing more to your taste. The more romantically compatible they are, the better they'll be able to guess exactly what to wear to catch your eye.

Bonus Style Points ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Sense of Style)
Luck will shine on anyone trying to dress up for you. They'll get their hands on outfits they couldn't normally afford, their clothes will fit better, and in extreme cases they might even find themselves able to change shape, sex, or species—though only in ways that make them more, not less, comfortable in their own skin.

Like a Mirror ☐
Cost: 3
An underlying fact of the multiverse is that the same person can exist in multiple places, either as an alternate timeline where something went differently, or as the same essence of identity expressed under different circumstances. This power will steer you toward the local version of you, if they exist, in each world you visit. Your alternate selves will be happy to meet you, get along with you smoothly, and be inclined to cooperate with you.

Self-Reflection ☐
Cost: 5
Whenever you meet someone who is you, or was you, or could have been you, or will be you, a special bond is formed, allowing you to keep in touch with them no matter how far you travel. You can speak out loud to someone who is you, and they'll hear you as though you were standing next to them; you can write notes to someone who is you, and the note will appear near them; you can send messages to someone who is you, and they'll receive them even if there's more than a world between you. The person on the other end of the bond can contact you in just the same way. This lasts as long as each of you considers the other a reflection of themselves and each of you wants to stay in touch with the other.

Chaser Six When ☐
Cost: 4
(requires Time Enough for Love and Self-Reflection)
Two of you who are near each other can decide to merge, becoming a conjoined double consciousness sharing two bodies. One of you can decide to fragment, adding a body and a conjoined consciousness to drive it. You can share with yourselves not only messages but direct mind-to-mind transmission of thoughts and memories across any distance. Your fragments can narrow themselves down to focus on embodying specific mental states or orienting themselves to specific tasks, in a way that's fully reversible and doesn't make them any less you; they can also split off into discrete forks just as easily as discrete forks can conjoin themselves with each other. Fully merging conjoined selves into a completely unified being with only one you's worth of mind is also possible, but takes more time and effort and can't be done as fluidly.

Vending Machine ☐
Cost: 12
You can instantiate any person (real, fictional, or made up in your head) in any world you're in. Instantiating a real person will not pull them from their original world; it will create either a copy with their memories or the version of that person who would exist had they been born in that world. Instantiation can be retroactive: that is, you can use the power, and then meet the person you instantiated and find that they were already here and have lived in this world all their life.

Friendship: Society

These powers cover your relationship with society at large.

Making Ends Meet ☐
Cost: 1
You have enough money to sustain a comfortable lifestyle. It comes from a source you don't have to pay much attention to, like a job with almost no responsibilities, a large inheritance, or a noble title.

Motherlode ☐
Cost: 2
(requires Making Ends Meet)
You have enough money to sustain a fairly extravagant lifestyle. It doesn't come from anywhere, you just have it.

Four Star Daydream ☐
Cost: 4
(requires Motherlode)
The answer to "can I afford that" is "yes".

Severance ☐
Cost: 2
Identities that you gravely and deliberately cast aside no longer describe you or refer to you. You cannot be traced by them or identified with them. No one will ever know that you are the same person you were once known as, unless you choose to personally tell them.

Not Like Other Girls ☐
Cost: 2
People will understand that you're different. They won't make assumptions about you based on prejudice or stereotype, they won't apply legal or societal limitations to you based on what kind of person you are, and they won't take you as a representative of your demographics.

Pacifist ☐ or A Gentler Way ☐ or Give Peace a Chance ☐
Cost: 6
Pacifist: Fights don't happen to you. Any violent conflict you might otherwise get into is either avoided by coincidence, or replaced with a yelling match, game, contest, race, or dance battle, whichever is most appropriate to the situation. Powers you have that give you advantages in fights also apply to fight replacements.
A Gentler Way: Games, contests, races, dance battles, and so on are likely to be accepted as alternatives to violence, if you propose them when a fight is breaking out. This effect works better the more well-tailored your suggestion is to the specific combatants and their personalities and cultural expectations. Doing this often enough can cause your alternatives to spread, potentially replacing most violence in an area. Powers you have that give you advantages in fights also apply to fight replacements.
Give Peace a Chance: You have a knack for defusing violent conflicts. People won't necessarily go from "at each other's throats" to "besties" right away, or even agree not to fight, but they'll always hear you out. This effect works better the more well-tailored your suggestion is to the specific combatants and their personalities and cultural expectations. You can propose a fight replacement if you weren't able to stop the fight completely and your success will depend on the same factors. Powers you have that give you advantages in fights also apply to fight replacements.

Popular ☐
Cost: 3
Wherever you go, you develop a reputation fast. The sort of people who you'd like to have as fans tend to hear about you and be impressed. You may not make an impression on mainstream society at large, but you'll develop a following among the people who best resonate with your style.

Famous ☐
Cost: 3
(Requires Popular)
Wherever you go, people really take to you. You're the subject of constant gossip and most people have heard of you before you meet them. People you've never met will get crushes on you.

Approachable ☐
Cost: 3
(requires Popular and Backchannel)
You have a knack for putting your fans at ease. No matter how famous you get, anyone who sincerely has something to say to you will know you sincerely want to hear it. This effect fades every time you're rude, threatening, or otherwise unpleasant to someone in that position, but can be built back up by cultivating patience and kindness instead.

Undiplomatic Immunity ☐
Cost: 6
You are above the law. Any crimes you commit will be overlooked by the authorities. Note that, if you do enough crime that you start looking more like an invading army, local governments will still feel free to declare war.

Friends In Low Places ☐
Cost: 3
You make friends easily among the lowest echelons of society, the underdogs and underworlders. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Friends In High Places ☐
Cost: 3
You make friends easily at the highest echelons of society, among the rich and powerful. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Friends in Strange Places ☐
Cost: 3
You make friends easily in small isolated communities, among those who may be scorned by mainstream society for their differences or may just be so obscure that mainstream society mostly hasn't heard of them. Moving and acting in these circles is intuitive and natural for you.

Drawbacks

These options grant points rather than costing them. They represent inconveniences or mitigations of existing advantages. For the most part, they override the effects of powers where relevant, with one exception: no drawback may break the promise made by It Gets Better.

Drawbacks: General

These drawbacks don't belong in a specific subcategory.

There's Another One ☐
Grants: 3
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.

Makes the Dream Work ☐
Grants: 6
(requires There's Another One)
When you embark on a significant, impactful project, something that would tend to be a central plotline in a story about you, you must work with other people to accomplish it. Without a team of friends, comrades, or coworkers to collaborate with, you'll never make more than slow, limited progress. Also, even if your powers would normally position you as the central star of such a team, they'll holdback from doing that here; your teammates will be able to relate to you as equals, and will be immune to any effect that would make them overlook your flaws or agree with you against their better judgment.

Incomplete ☐
Grants: 5
About half of people you encounter will be immune to all effects listed under Power of Friendship, and about half of those who remain will see reduced effects. You can do nothing to change this.

Nullified ☐
Grants: 1
(requires Incomplete)
Any aspects of your powers that would affect the minds of others in ways they might not like will instead not do that. This can make many of your powers less effective. It does override the effects of Incomplete, allowing people to benefit from desirable mental effects that Incomplete would have made them immune to, as long as the effect is one they personally want.

The Princess and the Pea ☐
Grants: 1
(requires at least one of Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, Snowglobe)
The "only when cool and dramatic" restriction on negative effects from acquired powers is lifted for sensory powers specifically. You experience all sensory overload, overstimulation, and other issues normally caused by any of your sensory enhancements.

Funhouse ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Like a Mirror)
This removes the restriction that all your alternate selves must get along with you. Now they can relate to you in all the ways you might potentially relate to another version of yourself. If you get along well with yourself, this might not be so bad.

Great Responsibility ☐
Grants: 4
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.

Helpline ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Great Responsibility)
People whose problems you could potentially solve will sometimes instinctively know to pray to you about them. They won't necessarily know anything else about you, or recognize you as the same being they prayed to. You won't necessarily know what their problem is or how to solve it.

Divine Mantle ☐
Grants: 6
(requires Helpline and at least one of Very Distinctive, They'll Know)
For every prayer you answer, it becomes permanently more apparent to everyone who perceives you that you are a power beyond reckoning, limitless in potential, greater than any god whose domain is bounded by a single knot of worlds. You cannot turn this off. At higher levels, this ability begins to broadcast more and more detail regarding how you feel about answering prayers and how the attributes of the prayer and the petitioner affect those feelings.

A Single Perfect Flaw ☐
Grants: 3
This could be a direct physical limitation, like having no voice, no sight, or no wings; it could be an everyday difficulty like clumsiness, or a magical curse that makes frogs fall from your mouth whenever you speak. Whatever it is, it must be both a significant limitation or inconvenience, and something that resonates with you personally or narratively. Once you take this drawback, your Perfect Flaw becomes permanent and irrevocable across all future versions of you. It can be mitigated or worked around, but never cured or removed.

Green With Envy ☐
Grants: 6
People are so eager to be your friend that they become bitter and vindictive when denied the opportunity. You can tear apart long-established friend groups if you aren't careful to give everyone equal attention, and sometimes even then. This effect is particularly harsh around people you're dating.

You Ruin Them ☐
Grants: 3
Once someone has dated, slept with, or even shared a deep and longing glance across a room with you, their heart is never fully satisfied with anyone else. Other relationships pale in comparison to what they could have, or imagine they could have, with you.

Jilted Lovers ☐
Grants: 4
When you break up with someone, they become monomaniacally obsessed with getting back together. If you take Realism, this will absolutely escalate to violent stalking.

They'll Know ☐
Grants: 8
Normally, your powers prefer by default to operate in plausibly deniable ways, making it hard to tell they're even there except when you choose to use them openly or when subtlety needs to give way to other considerations. Mind-affecting powers are usually also directly self-concealing. This drawback changes that.

Drawbacks: Appearance

These drawbacks relate to how you look and how you wish you looked.

Decorative ☐
Grants: 1
You are unfailingly cute and pretty and feminine at all times, in all circumstances. You cannot wear insufficiently pretty clothes. You cannot make insufficiently pretty noises. You cannot ugly cry.

Beauty is a Curse ☐
Grants: 1
(requires A Thousand Ships)
No, you don't understand. Beauty IS a curse. People will NOT stop bringing it up. Everyone you meet just has to point out how pretty you are. This will never stop happening. Even the most tactful people find it slipping out subtly, as remarks about the luster of your hair or the depth of your eyes.

Even Worse ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Beauty is a Curse)
People are no longer compelled to comment on your beauty at all times; however, their attention is still drawn to it, and you tend to accumulate jealous rivals, aggressive admirers, and even greedy villains.

Plain Jane ☐
Grants: 2
No matter what you look like, nor how many times people tell you you're beautiful, when you look in the mirror all you see is imperfections. You will never be fully satisfied with your appearance on an instinctive level.

Style of Sisyphus ☐
Grants: 1
Anytime you settle on a personal style that works well for you, soon afterward you'll encounter inspiration for another style that you like even better. You might end up cycling between different fashions, or trying to incporporate them all into a single outfit (and then finding another inspiration and having to start all over again).

Signature Style ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Style of Sisyphus)
The effects of Style of Sisyphus are inverted. 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.

Mood Ring ☐
Grants: 2
(requires at least two of A Thousand Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed)
Your appearance powers will advertise your feelings and reactions. You might shrink in fear; your eyes might glow red with anger; your laughter might be literally musical. You cannot turn this off or adjust it.

Moodier Ring ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Mood Ring, A Thousand Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Hollow Leg)
Your appearance powers will work together to advertise your feelings and reactions. Some of these effects might be subtle; many will be the opposite. Anime sweatdrops are not out of the question.

Very Distinctive ☐
Grants: 3
(requires at least three of A Thousand Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed
You cannot successfully disguise yourself to anyone who has met you in your normal identity. Even someone who has only seen you at a distance or heard about your style might notice similarities.

Flashy ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Very Distinctive and at least five of A Thousand Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed, Mysterious Allure)
Stealth just doesn't work for you. If someone has any opportunity to notice your presence, they will.

Mark of the Witch ☐
Grants: 1
(requires Dragon Fairy Elf Witch and at least three of A Thousand Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed)
You can never appear fully normal for any species whose appearance you mimic. Some small detail will always seem out of place on close inspection—perhaps the wrong color of hair or eyes or scales, perhaps moss growing from your skin or an ethereal glow haloing your horns, perhaps an extra eye or an iridescent birthmark. These marks can be hidden with clothing or illusions, but their concealment will never be flawlessly impenetrable.

Drawbacks: Adventure

These drawbacks make your life more interesting in certain ways, which are a boon to some and a terror to others.

Selective Memory ☐
Grants: 3
Pick between three and ten of your chosen powers and drawbacks. You forget that they were ever offered to you, and all evidence that you took them is erased. You still have them, but you no longer remember what they are. It is possible to rediscover them later by observing them in action, but it might take a while to pin down exactly what they were. It's up to you whether or not to list this drawback among them.

The Veil ☐
Grants: 5
(requires Selective Memory)
You forget that these powers were ever offered to you, and all evidence that you chose them is erased. You still proceed to your Destination as normal, but without any explanation for why you were suddenly transported to another world, if you chose to travel to one. It is still possible to disccover your powers by observation, but pinning down the details could turn out to be quite the project.

Painted Veil ☐
Grants: 1
(requires Selective Memory)
Your memories may be altered instead of erased, to provide alternative explanations for the effects of your powers or to adjust your understanding of what powers you have and how they work. These alterations will be fairly restrained and will overall operate in your best interests.

Secret Identity ☐
Grants: 2
When you're at home, in your world of origin, your powers are fully concealed. Unfair advantages are withdrawn and inhuman features are hidden. Powers of safety and convenience still work, as long as they can remain plausibly deniable, but to all outward appearances you're back to being your ordinary self with no magic to speak of. (If you take this with They'll Know, the standards for plausible deniability will be much more restrictive and fewer powers will be able to work with them, but safety powers will still work and still conceal themselves.)

Grimm's Fairy Tales ☐
Grants: 1
(requires Cotton Candy)
Bad things can and will still happen to you in particular.

Dramatic Damsel ☐
Grants: 3
When (and only when) an opportunity for a really great story arises, powers that ordinarily protect you from things like getting hurt, being drugged, or losing fights will slip just enough to facilitate someone getting the better of you. The power may reassert itself right away for a dramatic escape, or keep a loophole open or a handicap in place long enough to make your escape more difficult and elaborate. (Combining this with Realism is not recommended.)

Love is a Battlefield ☐
Grants: 5
(requires Dramatic Damsel)
You can never have a perfect defense against your love interests. Though your defensive powers may hinder them, they can always find a way through. This applies to anyone you're romantically interested in, and to anyone chosen for you by Fated Lovers. As your relationship with them intensifies, your defenses lower further where they're concerned. Breaking up with them has no effect on your vulnerability.

Seen with the Heart ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Love is a Battlefield and Selective Memory)
To the extent that you're vulnerable to someone through Love is a Battlefield, they also have unusual insight into powers you possess that you may not be aware of. Taking They'll Know strengthens this effect.

Keys to Your Heart ☐
Grants: 6
(requires Love is a Battlefield)
When you fall in love, you give away a key to your heart: a metaphysical bond that commands your absolute devotion. You have no control over this bond, and no way to revoke it. Anyone who holds a key to your heart can give you orders you are unable to refuse. You can delay or ask for clarification, but only to serve their interests, not yours. You cannot betray them in thought, word, or deed. Conflicting loyalties to different keyholders who are at odds with each other—or worse, conflicting direct orders asking you to do contradictory things—can cause a state of painfully frantic indecision, but ultimately the stronger relationship will win out. In the case of one person giving you orders that conflict with themselves or with that person's interests, you can reason through what they would want you to do in that situation, or ask them to clarify. You and those commanding you always instinctively know the difference between an enforced order and an unenforced request.

The Wrong Crowd ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Popular and Dramatic Damsel)
In addition to making you popular with people who would get along with you and enjoy your style, Popular also ensures that potential villains for Dramatic Damsel storylines hear about you in a timely manner. Someone who falls into both categories will hear about you even faster.

Long-Range Broadcast ☐
Grants: 6
(requires The Wrong Crowd)
Kidnappers you'd be Popular with will find out about you from worlds away. They may not all choose to pursue you, but if they do, they will find ways of reaching you. You may spend a lot of your time far from home.

Hot Commodity ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Even Worse and Dramatic Damsel)
Stories that involve someone kidnapping you often feature your renowned beauty as a central motivation, and anyone who likes kidnapping beautiful people is likely to hear about you with particular emphasis on how beautiful you are.

Get Rich Quick ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Motherlode and Dramatic Damsel)
Others can gain control of your wealth and its sources by gaining control of you. Stories that involve someone kidnapping you often feature those sources as a motivation.

Delicious and Nutritious ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Like Roses and Dramatic Damsel)
Your signature scent advertises a truly decadent meal to vampires and other anthropophages. Stories that involve someone kidnapping you often feature your tempting aroma as a central motivation, and may lead to the kidnapper becoming temporarily or permanently empowered by a successful sip or nibble.

Golden Goose ☐
Grants: 5
(requires Starstuff and Delicious and Nutritious)
Your transformative nature makes you a valuable source of rare and magical materials. Stories that involve someone kidnapping you often feature this form of value as a central motivation, usually on a very personal level—though more commercial forms of exploitation are also available, if you're into that sort of thing. Either way, the empowerment your kidnapper extracts from you is likely to be both permanent and extensive.

Keeps on Giving ☐
Grants: 5
(requires More Magic and Golden Goose)
Magic you have collected can be extracted from you without your consent. Stories that involve someone kidnapping you often feature this source of empowerment as a central motivation, and the nature of the extraction process is shaped by your narrative sensibilities and other preferences.

Wardrobe Malfunction ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Dressing Room and Dramatic Damsel)
During stories for which your protections are lifted, you may suffer persistent clothing damage that can't be repaired using Dressing Room. Even after regaining your other powers, your clothes may remain torn or otherwise distressed until the story concludes, or you may be forced to wear whatever your captor chooses to dress you in.

Mudslinging ☐
Grants: 1
(requires Personal Hygiene and Wardrobe Malfunction)
During stories for which your protections are lifted, you may get dirty when narratively appropriate, including potentially needing to take a narratively appropriate bath or do narratively appropriate laundry.

Slapstick Comedy ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Dramatic Damsel and at least one of Angelic Tones, Lightfoot, Mysterious Allure)
At narratively appropriate moments, whether in or out of storylines in which your protections are lifted more generally, you may experience moments of verbal or physical clumsiness or other minor mishaps that serve to undercut your glamorous image and remind you and those around you that you're an imperfect person just like they are, who makes mistakes and has problems just like they do. These mishaps will never cause lasting harm to anything but your dignity.

Sound Effects ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Soundtrack, Mood Ring, and Slapstick Comedy)
Feelings and reactions that are advertised by Mood Ring or moments of indignity brought on by Slapstick Comedy will be accompanied by cartoony sound effects that can be heard by those around you.

Down to Earth ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Approachable and Dramatic Damsel)
You are cursed to relate to other people's perspectives and experiences. When your life has been so charmed for so long that you forget what it's like to have difficulties or limitations, you will be reminded. When you meet someone who needs you to understand what they went through, you'll go through something similar. This directive supersedes Dramatic Damsel's storyline parameters, but you can add those storylines back in by taking other drawbacks in the Dramatic Damsel family.

The Crazy Train ☐
Grants: 6
Powers that you should be able to control directly or influence by your mood and preferences (like Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, Emerald Orbs, or What's In A Name) instead answer only to the narrative, which is still using your aesthetics but might not necessarily have your best interests in mind. Combines… interestingly… with Realism.

That's How it Goes ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Secret Identity and The Crazy Train)
Rather than being confined to when you're in a specific universe, the power suppression from Secret Identity operates on the same narrative sensibility that drives your voluntary powers: some or all of your powers may be suppressed whenever the story demands it, and return later at an appropriate time. This can synergize with Dramatic Damsel to make your interludes as a damsel significantly more dramatic.

Live the Role ☐
Grants: 4
(requires That's How it Goes and Selective Memory)
Your memories, including but not limited to memories of your own powers, may be altered or suppressed at the discretion of the narrative. In general, the story will usually let you have your memories back eventually; if you take It Gets Better, you can be sure that you will someday recover anything you've lost that you would want to regain.

Marionette ☐
Grants: 3
(requires The Crazy Train and Love is a Battlefield)
To the extent that you're vulnerable to someone through Love is a Battlefield, they also gain direct influence over the use of your powers.

Puppet Show ☐
Grants: 2
(requires Marionette and That's How it Goes)
Marionette's influence extends to fully suppressing and reactivating your powers.

Memory Lane ☐
Grants: 3
(requires Marionette and Live the Role)
Marionette's influence extends to altering and suppressing your memories, as easily and powerfully as the narrative itself could. The effect of It Gets Better still applies.

Special Friend ☐
Grants: 6
(requires Marionette and at least one of Ascended Friend, Another Kind of Friend)
You no longer have a single fated Best Friend. Instead, the powers of your Best Friend—but not the guaranteed loyalty—are available to any love interest of yours who chooses to take on that mantle. With Ascended Friend, they can become your personal god; with Another Kind of Friend, they can inhabit your home, tattoos, or shadow. You may have any number of Special Friends at once. A Special Friend who wishes to give up this connection may do so, and will lose all direct connection to you, but may retain general abilities to shapeshift, move through shadows, and so on.

Drawbacks: Disrecommended

This option is provided for those who need it, but it removes the greatest advantage of the Spirit's power. Think carefully.

Realism ☐
Grants: 20
Give up your metanarrative protection. Although your individually selected powers still work as described, the invisible synergies that protect you from, say, gaining violent stalkers through Mysterious Allure or being genuinely traumatized by your Tragic Backstory are removed. Additionally, though effects like I Can Fix Them still operate, they may take considerably more effort, care, thought, and narrative investment on your part.

Huh, the text here looks more like the text in the books she's used to than how it did when she was talking back and forth with the notebook…

She blinks when she actually reads the preamble. She hasn't read very many stories; she hopes that the powers don't need her to know how stories work to use them.

I don't really know what makes something narratively appropriate. Is that going to be a problem? Also, do the powers ever have negative side effects that aren't obvious?

What kinds of problems are you expecting?

Well, my main problem is I don't know what to expect!

She underlines the bit about glowing eyes and dramatically hazy vision.

I didn't know that glowing eyes might make it hard to see! And I don't know what times "dramatically hazy vision" is "cool" and "narratively appropriate"! What if I take a power that might make me have that, but I don't know when to expect it?

Oh, I see!

Does it help that the metanarrative protection is based on what you think makes for a good story? So if you don't think it's cool if you're reading something where a character's eyes start to glow and this gives them bad vision, that specific thing won't happen.

I still don't know a lot about stories, though. I haven't read very many so I don't know what kinds of things might happen in them. But…

She circles the whole preamble.

Is this saying that the powers have no downsides and they won't make bad things happen ever?

Not exactly, because different people count different things as downsides. That's what the Well Endowed example is for. I think that broadly what the metanarrative protection does is it makes sure the powers do exactly what they say they do—you asked about non-obvious side effects earlier and I think broadly the answer to that question is… there isn't really a way to promise you that nothing bad will ever happen after you take your powers. But what the Spirit can promise is that it isn't trying to trick you with the powers.

Okay.

Maybe this will make more sense when she looks at the powers. Then she can ask questions that aren't hypothetical!

She's immediately thrown for a loop by the Destination options. At first she's ready to check Stay Put, since she does not have Somewhere In Mind, but… that last one sounds so exciting. A little scary, to be sure, but she bets that the Spirit would send her somewhere with lots of interesting people…

Leaving the other one-like-her behind. And she doesn't think he would be able to learn how to fend for himself the way she had to.

How come all the Destinations are mutually exclusive? Why can't I Stay Put for a while and then go somewhere else, or have the Spirit send me somewhere and then come back?

I think there are a couple of different reasons.

One is that when the Spirit empowers you, it's giving you the power to shape the story of your life and self on your own, rather than shaping it for you. All of the choices you make, including where to go, are ways of helping you decide what you want that story to look like. So choosing a destination isn't locking you into one setting for your story, it's choosing how you want it to start!

Another is that when the Spirit empowers you and sends you to your destination, if you choose to go somewhere else, it's all one thing. This lets the Spirit be more effective with its power.

I do want to stress that choosing to have the Spirit send you somewhere doesn't keep you from coming back and that choosing to stay here doesn't keep you from going to different worlds in the future, especially if those options are important to you.

Well that just makes her feel even more indecisive!

She should back up and think about this logically. If choosing a destination is about choosing a beginning, then that means that if she knows she'll spend some time at home and some time in crazy weird places, she should choose which one she wants to happen first.

Can the Spirit mess with time so that if I go somewhere else I'll come back before anything bad happens here?

There are a lot of powers that do things with time! And there are a lot of ways of going to a different world that make it so when you come back, time has passed much slower here than it did while you were away.

So she could go somewhere totally unknown!

But… she thinks that she would feel bad, on the inside, if she left him behind without knowing how he was doing. She's willing to trust that the Spirit would help send her back before anything bad happened, but it still feels better to stick with him for now.

How do I tell you what choice I make? Do I just write it down? And can I change my mind about a choice after?

You can put a mark in the box next to a destination, power, or drawback! And if you want some options more than others, I can keep track of a bunch of different point totals at once. You can change your mind as many times as you want.

That's pretty convenient.

She puts a little X in the box next to Stay Put. And then she flips the page to look at the actual powers!

Why are the first powers the ones about how she looks. Is "how she looks" even a power? She can change that pretty easily already…

Are A Thousand Ships and A Hundred Ships like Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, and Perfect Nails? Do they make it so my face doesn't have to be "physically or logistically plausible"? Also, why are A Thousand Ships and A Hundred Ships different? Is there also a Five Hundred Ships power?

… That last question was frivolous and she doesn't even know what a Five Hundred Ships power would look like, nor does she particularly want it. But it's funny, so she leaves it be.

Yes, if there's a way of having a beautiful face that doesn't technically follow laws of physics, biology, or whatever else, A Thousand Ships and A Hundred Ships let it happen anyway!

There are some groups of powers that do basically the same thing, or accomplish basically the same goal, but there are still important differences in the exact things that the powers can do or how they work, usually because someone at some point wanted a power that was almost the same as an existing power. Right now there isn't any Five Hundred Ships power, but if you'd like I can think about it!

Oh, I don't really want that. I was just curious.

She looks at Perfect Hair and Perfect Nails a little more. She doesn't really have fingernails or toenails right now. She's not totally sure she needs them, or if they'd make her feel more connected to the people who lived a long time ago, the humans. She knows that the *teeth* did…

She puts a ~ in both boxes, to represent that she maybe wants them.

When she does this, the 0/70 in the page corner changes:

X 0/70
~ 3/70

Neat!

She immediately Xes Size Difference. Technically she can change her size the same way she can change other parts of her body, but it takes a lot longer and it would be super useful to be able to grow and shrink in a hurry.

Well Endowed and Hollow Leg don't particularly interest her. Inner Strength and Lightfoot are really cool, though. So… ~ for all four, she guesses?

… She is definitely not even close to a seventh of the way into the powers list.

What happens if the powers I choose add up to more than 70 points?

X 2/70
~11/70

If your powers add up to more points than you have access to, I won't be able to empower you. There aren't any other consequences.

Okay. Can you count the X powers in the ~ total?

The counts silently update to

X 2/70
~ 13/70

Okay, cool.

… she decides to add another wanting-level, to distinguish between the way she feels about Perfect Nails and the way she feels about the Well Endowed power group.

Once she has explained the updated categorization system to the notebook, her new totals are

X ‎2/70
! 10/70
~ 13/70

Okay, that feels correct.

The Dressing Room powers give her the same feeling that the Well Endowed powers did. Well, Undressing Room isn't super tempting.

How many of the cool powers like Inner Strength and Pocket Dimension have silly requirements like Hollow Leg and Dressing Room?

X 2/70
! 14/70
~19/70

I think what powers are cool and what powers are silly depends a lot on the person who's thinking about them and their personal priorities! And a lot of the time, when one power requires another power, it's usually because the required power is more central to the Spirit, or because it comes with guarantees that, if you didn't have them, might make using the second power cause a lot of problems for you. And, of course, you've got powers where the second power is more straightforwardly an upgrade to the first one.

So Well Endowed is a requirement for Hollow Leg because of the first thing, and Hollow Leg is a requirement for Inner Strength and Lightfoot because it provides a baseline of safety, by letting you have a body that can do things that aren't physically plausible. The same applies to Dressing Room and Pocket Dimension.

Does that help?

It makes sense, although it does make her worry a little about the Spirit's priorities.

If there's a power for something that I can already do, do I still have to take the power?

X 2/70
! 14/70
~ 19/70

It depends on what you mean by "have to," I think. If you want to be sure that you'll have that ability in all possible situations, or if you want to take a power that requires the power, then I would recommend taking the power. And if you think that it would be more enjoyable to you for your ability to keep working the same way it does now, for the same reasons, it might be better to not take the power. The Spirit's powers don't need reasons to work, they just work.

Are a lot of things like that?

X 2/70
! 14/70
~ 19/70

Like what?

Not needing a reason to work. What does that even mean?

X 2/70
! 14/70
~ 19/70

Well, all of the Spirit's powers are like that.

This is always tricky to explain, so please ask me questions if you're still confused, but… none of these powers are limited to working in one specific way. There are lots of ways you could explain how Dressing Room and Pocket Dimension work, for example. But all of those ways have rules to them, which means that there are circumstances where those powers might not work the way that you want them to work because something about what you want would break the rules. So instead of having rules, the Spirit's powers just… work. Every time. So you don't have to worry about your powers breaking if you go somewhere with extremely different physics than what you're used to, because the powers aren't following those physical rules in the first place.

So the powers can… change their own rules? That seems really strange.

Also scary. But she actually hadn't considered the possibility that there were places that the physical rules she's been slowly figuring out weren't the same, so… maybe this is actually the less scary option.

I think I understand what you mean about the powers not having to follow one set of rules. But I don't see why that means that things can happen without a reason. Doesn't everything have a reason, even if things that look the same can have different reasons?

X 2/70
! 14/70
~ 19/70

There are some places where that isn't the case! But when it comes to powers granted by the Spirit, oftentimes the ultimate reason something happens is that you chose for it to happen, or that it's what makes for the best story. And then if there needs to be a specific physical cause, that can be arranged retroactively.

What if I meet someone else with Spirit powers and she wants something different from me?

X 2/70
! 14/70
~ 19/70

By default, you won't meet anyone else with powers granted by the Spirit. There's a drawback you can choose to change that; if you choose it then how your powers work on each other and which powers would win in a fight will be decided by what makes for a better story for both of you.

She will… think about drawbacks when she gets to that point. For now, she feels like maybe she'll get a better understanding of how the Spirit works by reading more about the powers.

She doesn't need half of Personal Hygiene but the other half would definitely be convenient; she's found out that if she doesn't clean her outer surfaces regularly she can get gunky on the inside, which doesn't actually have direct negative effects but sure feels unpleasant. She almost gives it an X right there, but… she's trying to save the Xes for powers she definitely, absolutely wants. It can get an ! for now.

Starstuff is kind of insane, but… also super tempting. She likes the stuff that she's made of right now, but it would be cool to be able to change it around.

Is she going to add another tier and rejigger her totals again? Yes, yes she is.

X 2/70
⛤ 10/70
! 22/70
~ 25/70

What do all of the symbols that you're using mean? You don't have to answer if you don't want to or if it's particularly hard to explain, but I like to talk with people about their choices. Also, I'm curious!

The X means that I'm definitely choosing that option. ⛤ and ! are pretty similar because they both mean that a power sounds cool but I'm not totally sure about it, usually because it's pretty expensive or because I don't know how much it will come up, and I want to come back to it; ⛤ is closer to X than ! is. And ~ is for powers that *might* be cool.

X 2/70
⛤ 10/70
! 22/70
~ 25/70

That's very interesting! I'm not sure I understand the difference between ⛤ and !, but that's okay. I can keep track of the totals fine and the important part is that your system works for you.

Well, I'm going to be reading through all the powers again when I get to the end of the list, so those two are mostly so that I remember that I wanted to think about those ones again with more context. And I think I want to think about Starstuff again in a different way than I want to think about Inner Strength and Lightfoot.

She almost put in Pocket Dimension as the example power for the ! tier, but now that she thinks of it she's gonna promote it to ⛤ tier instead.

And that's the end of the Yourself: Appearance section! She has no idea how she's gonna make it through this whole list of really interesting powers with only seventy points.

What's a true name? How can it be used against someone?

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 22/70
~: 25/70

There are some magic systems where you do magic to people or things by knowing or invoking their name. Because there are a lot of magic systems like that, I can't really give an explanation that's true for all of them, but… usually if you have a true name it's a fundamental part of you like your body or your mind. Sometimes someone's true name is the first name they were given, sometimes it's a metaphysical fact about them that started being true when they started existing, sometimes it's something they have to discover or make for themselves. Sometimes just knowing someone's name is enough to form a magical connection to them, sometimes you have to say it to them, sometimes you have to do a ritual that incorporates it. This isn't an exhaustive description of all true name magic forever, to be clear.

Huh. I can see why you'd want to avoid people being able to use your true name against you, but why the first part of the power?

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 22/70
~: 25/70

Sometimes people don't like the name they were given! They might not like the sound of it, or feel like it implies things about them that they don't want people to think are true, or want to conceptually separate themselves from the people who first named them.

That makes sense. I don't have a name because I haven't really needed one yet. I guess if I'm going to be potentially meeting a lot of people I should figure one out. And make sure that I like it.

She gives What's In A Name a ~ and moves on… to Immunity System, which gives her pause. At first she's tempted to skip over it, because she's never gotten sick or poisoned before, but it's starting to seem like there could be some pretty heavy-duty sicknesses and poisons out there! Also, you can get sick from spending time around other people who are sick, and she doesn't know if she's immune to that kind of getting sick. On account of never having spent time with a sick person.

Are there powers that let me help other people not get sick? Or that let me help people get better if they're already sick?

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 25/70
~: 29/70

I don't actually know of a lot of powers for specifically that! There's a Power of Friendship that lets you cure any illness or break any curse by kissing someone you care sincerely about and there are a few Yourself powers that let you pick up skills and magical abilities, which can definitely include healing sick people or preventing sickness, in full generality. If you'd like, I can definitely try to think of a power for healing sick people.

It feels a little silly to ask for custom powers before she's even a quarter of the way through the list, but it feels incredibly silly that the list doesn't already have those powers!

That would be great!

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 25/70
~: 29/70

The notebook puts a little ♡ next to that sentence.

I don't recognize that letter.

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 25/70
~: 29/70

Oh, it's not a letter! It's a little symbol representing a heart, because I really appreciated that you thought it would be great if I tried to make a healing power for you.

She doesn't totally see the connection between those things but it seems sweet anyway.

Moving on. If she takes Immunity System then she'll also be taking Breathe Easy and Warmhearted because they seem super handy for exploring a lot of different kinds of places!

Is there a version of Just A Little Longer where I don't have to sleep a whole day after?

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 27/70
~: 31/70

Well, sleeping for an entire day is the upper limit, so that shouldn't kick in until you've spent at least a whole day working. But I don't know of any power right now that doesn't have that included. What part of sleeping for a whole day makes you want to avoid it?

She stares at the page in confusion. She had never considered this to be nonobvious and she's having trouble putting it to words.

Because I… like doing things. And experiencing things that are real. Also sleeping is more vulnerable than being awake but that seems like something that the metanarrative protection should make not be an issue. I guess if there's a power that lets me do real things in my dreams that would be okay.

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 27/70
~: 31/70

Well, there's a power that gives you a persistent mindscape, which makes it easier to keep your mind in order. Mindscapes also make many kinds of magic easier, not all of which involve directly interfacing with minds. And there's an offshoot power that lets you keep in contact with people you care about who are arbitrarily far away in your dreams. I could look into a power that lets you affect the outside world in your dreams, but… it definitely seems to me that you'd prefer to not need sleep in the first place.

I would prefer that, thank you.

She rests her cheek on her hand thoughtfully.

What happens if I take a no-sleeping power and Just A Little Longer at the same time? Or if I took that dreaming power with the no-sleeping power?

X: 2/70
⛤: 14/70
!: 27/70
~: 31/70

I'll get to work on it!

I can't say for sure until I've finalized the no-sleeping power, but I would be surprised if it made you unable to sleep if a circumstance ever arose where you wanted to. I think that how those powers would interact would depend a lot on what the person taking them wanted—someone might find it appropriate to sleep only when they had exerted themselves to the point that they needed Just A Little Longer and then experience the exhaustion normally, while someone else might find that they only needed to rest and avoid doing anything particularly physically, mentally, or magically strenuous during that time. I do think that, unless someone takes a power that explicitly nullifies the part of Just A Little Longer where they need to rest after using it, they would be drained in some way that was thematically appropriate to the power afterwards.

She decides that Just A Little Longer can get a ~ until the notebook comes up with something that fixes the sleeping problem.

Soundtrack seems skippable at first but Soundboard seems like it has a lot of really convenient uses, both because of the enhanced senses and also because she has no idea what it's like to try to talk and listen to a bunch of people at the same time. Inner World sounds like it's the mindscape power the notebook mentioned… the notetaking power does seem handy, but…

Are there any powers that improve memory?

X: 2/70
⛤: 16/70
!: 29/70
~: 34/70

Yes! There's a power that gives you a perfect memory and there are a couple of related powers that protect your thoughts, including your memories, from tampering.

There's stuff that can mess with thoughts and memories????????

She skims forward and finds that the notebook conveniently guides her right to the relevant part of the Yourself: Protection subsection. The thought of people directly reading her thoughts and feelings is less INTENSELY HORRIBLY SCARY than people messing with them but she definitely, absolutely wants Iron Will.

Thanks.

X: 8/70
⛤: 22/70
!: 35/70
~: 40/70

I'm glad that I was able to offer those powers to you!

She flips back to where she was. Inner Housekeeping seems kind of spooky, mostly because she just had the scare of contemplating life without the Iron Will family. Allusionist seems like it could be handy if not for all the weird stipulations about how it might not ever be actually handy.

And now she's halfway through the Yourself section!

What are "languages"?

X: 8/70
⛤: 22/70
!: 35/70
~: 40/70

A language is a specific way of communicating! In the sense of a collection of words and grammar rules, anyway.

There's more than one of those?

X: 8/70
⛤: 22/70
!: 35/70
~: 40/70

There are lots! Does this world only have one? That sometimes happens, but I think most worlds have lots and lots.

I'm not sure. I used to assume that there was only one, but… I think that maybe some of the people I've tried talking to in the past must have spoken a different language and I didn't realize. Would Omniglot let me talk to anybody I meet?

X: 8/70
⛤: 22/70
!: 35/70
~: 40/70

There are some people who can't use language for a variety of reasons, so it wouldn't let you talk to them on its own, but you would be able to communicate with anyone who uses language.

Yeah, she knows very well that there are some people who can't use language.

World's Greatest Detective and World's Psychicest Detective are like if Allusionist wasn't weirdly useless! That's probably why they're seven times as expensive.

Does Anything You Can Do work if I don't know anyone who has a particular skill?

X: 11/70
⛤: 28/70
!: 45/70
~: 50/70

Anything You Can Do is mainly a power for learning skills by being taught or, more broadly, watching someone else perform them. Sometimes you can get some of its benefits before you realize someone is a love interest, rival, or potential friend, especially if you take powers like Fated Lovers or Fated Friends, but the effects are always stronger the stronger your relationship is. And it doesn't apply to situations where you're trying to learn something without a specific other person's involvement.