more Merc story seeds

Merc stories and #story-seed

Merc + doppelgänger (always a classic)

• What is the foil though…? Why is it interesting to be confronted with a version of yourself . If it was Merc and he was totally ego-less relaxed, they’d probably just work on a project together and go their separate ways.

Merc in a TIME LOOP

Which ones explore the HW Magic System - at least a bit and get people interested.

Shaping the surreal…

• Merc does a small shaping - desparate situation, machine broken down.
• A chaotic storm, perhaps not just nature but also magic.
• Weathering his way through the surrealities.
  Ascending towards the mountains, things become even more strange - there is a PORTAL up there, it seems, some powerful confluence of surreality.

Stepping into it - mapping it - why would he go into this place, because his map indicates it’s a possible location of an artifact, a person, someone that he can talk to about GOING INSANE.

DOPPELGÄNGER - going insane, talks to himself, but it’s not himself, it’s the machine force. This can also happen in a separate surreal realm.

The insanity starts to shape his own worldview

• This CHANGES the shapings of his magic. He attempts to do something simple, and it becomes invested with machine will.

• So he attempts a natural shaping, it suddenly a tree branch sprouts gears

  • Or a leaf becomes motile.
  • Small FRACTAL gears of infitine spinning. One scale powers the other powers the other.. .the further you look down the more you fall into the realm

• Investigating a perpetual motion machine?

  • Something from a PORTAL realm, what seems to be a perpetual moving gear or something… and that could become the power source of his MECH, something similar like that.
  • Makes his Merc/mech very mechanical, but still with a magical source. So at a base level it’s just a “walker”, but he has glommed on a bunch of other tech stuff.
  • GPS but its a surreal scoper
  • Wave/Sensor device - to see when magic and such is SWELLING up, building.
  • Maybe something like a faraday cage - so surreal forces sweep around the mech but he is somewhat safe inside.

seven SINS

• magic equivalent
• What things should NOT be broke in the magic system?
• What are the worst violations?

More HW Magic System

Figure, Ground, Power Belief…

At the end of history, when peoples have risen and fallen,
Cultures erase but for distant memory and ancient relics.
The artifacts of the past become objects of magic.

Those with the right chant, the intention, orientation
Can SHAPE surreality with these tools.

Imagine a legend of flying men, back in the days when
We were promised jetpacks. And a wizard then finds,
Some material, some canister and shape. He paints on it a symbol
He begins to shape the surreal, finding the way of a spell

And behold, he lifts off from the ground.

It is surreal… that people could talk to each other over vast distances. It is rumored in the past, but little believed now. That songs once thrummed in the very air, invisible unless you had the magic to catch them.

The wizard shapes the surreal.

a strange device in his hand, glows with arcane energy. He removes from it a small fragile shape, not unlike the whorl of a shell. Places it to his ear, and you - watching from a distance, suddenly hear his voice in your ear.

In other places, other wizards and cultures may have GROUNDED different kinds of systems
Rasta Wizard has grounded, and helps maintain a balance of SPIRITS, cycles of nature, man, young and old. He does not always appear in the same form (unlike Merc - sustained by the mythos of everlasting technology…?) - but sometimes appears young, sometimes old (maybe with the cycle of the moon - waxes towards his AGING version, then to his youth )

The FRACTURING FRACTURING

Merc’s shapings..

His STYLE, is tech and machine oriented.