The Spark Insigna
Spark is the foundation of a being's power. It comes from a piece of the Realm’s own Realmspark and thus grants the ability to influence the Realm itself. While this power starts out small, it will start to branch out very early on and has the ability to go either very diverse or very powerful depending on the one who tempers their Spark. Creatures from older Realms have a stronger Spark available for them from the start, but this also means their growth is limited to certain aspects. Younger or Fragmented Realms are not confined that way, but are weaker in general as a trade-off.
The Spark consists of a number of layers that influence its potential. They are the Kernel, Concepts and Laws. Furthermore, it's divided into Ranks, and each Rank can be split further into five Grades. Creatures belonging to Fragmented Realms have their Spark damaged in return, and so they are either unable to ignite it, or can only do it through very strict tribulations. Such Realms are generally looked down upon the rest and are much weaker, but with much broader potentials.
The powers granted by the Spark are generally dormant within a given being, who is unable to draw out their full power. However, this means the skills don’t incur any cost on the user as long they have Focus to share. Although they are able to go past the Focus or to even Awaken them and draw out the full potential of the Concept that was activating it. Using the abilities granted by a Spark in such way comes naturally with a cost since it enforces an empowered rewrite on reality itself.
There's a limit to how much each person can burden their system in that way and that's measured in Fatigue. Naturally, as one grows in power, this threshold is expanded. When modifying the reality, the power of one’s Spark is always checked against the targets, should the target be stronger or unwilling to comply they will completely resist the attempt at allowing the alteration to manifest. Because of this weaker Races tend to avoid indirect abilities and focus on direct combat methods.
The Foundation of a Spark[]
| Kernel | Kernel (also known as Core) stands for the center of the Spark. It will grant the user a power predetermined by their Realm. This is usually referred to as a Racial Trait.
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| Concept | A Concept stands for the powers that a creature can wield. Since these abilities are born from the Spark itself and manifest through the Kernel they will influence reality itself.
The stronger one’s Spark is, the more powerful such an ability can be, and the easier it would be to affect others.
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| Laws | Laws are the building blocks for Concepts. They are clear and simple instructions on how one’s powers work, stacked in layers upon layers.
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| Essence | Primarily refers to Natural Essence. This is acquired automatically from the Realms and is stored in their Spark, ready to be converted to Realm Essence, that reforms the Spark and grows the Kernel of a given being. It is required to form more and more of Realm Essence in order to temper the Spark and attain a higher Grade for the Kernel.
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| Focus Slots | Focus Slots are a number of allocation of a user's selected Concepts. From the start of their awakening of powers, they are given the first and free Focus Slot. It increases once a user Ranks up.
Concepts set in Focus Slots can be used without a cost, however only at 20% of their power. Or they can Awaken them to reach their full power, in return for the cost of the Concept.
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