Magic vs. Miracles
Battle Fantasia is a world where magic is quite real. Magical girls exist who can summon tornadoes and cast fire from their hands, who call down the patronage of fairies and other things to give them strength, speed, grace and power. But there are limits. And ever since the Silver Millennium fell, many of these limits were believed to be sacrosanct:
- Time travel is impossible. No known means, scientific nor magical, can violate this law. Time is not inviolate - there are spells and artifacts to speed up or slow down the passage of time. But jumping from point to point is not a thing that can be done.
- Magic cannot bring back the dead. Of course, there are vampires, ghosts, zombies and other such creatures lurking between life and death, and it's not unheard of for someone reacting quickly and with heart to pull someone back even from the far side of the brink. But the truly dead may not be restored to true life.
- Soul contracts cannot be broken. This applies in particular to the binding of the soul that takes place when one assumes the mantle of magical girl. The attainment of power -- as a Sailor Senshi, as a Pretty Cure, as a Puella Magi -- is an irreversible choice, and no magic can take it back, no matter how dire the price. Some systems may have provisions built-in for breaking one's contract or retiring from service, but without them, joining the ranks of the powered is a permanent decision, revocable only by death.
These laws and some others like them appear to be inviolate to the magical scholar. There are other feats, hypothetically achievable but requiring levels of magical power that simply couldn't be brought to bear under all but the most well-tended circumstances, that most would also call impossible, but those are far too myriad and obtuse to list. Until Clow Reed's great working and greater paroxysms of grief, it was believed the sundering of the seals that locked Earth away from the magic worlds was similarly absolute a law -- and in that lies the rest of this tale.
There are things magic cannot do. But that does not mean they cannot be done. There are forces in this universe which can truly be called "miracles." And as the universe shakes with the rise of the newest, greatest generation of magical girls, those miraculous wonders are appearing more and more.
The Obsidian Lord's favor to his newly-won bride. A heartfelt wish upon the restored Silver Crystal. The power bestowed by the Embryo. The overflowing power of the Great Heart Tree in bloom. The infinite Leafe of White Pretear. The contractual wish granted to all Puella Magi.
All of these things are sources of true miracles. And miracles break all the rules. They can change the past, and reshape the present. They can end a war. They can wake the dead. They can transform the world into any shape the wisher desires...
And that is why so many people crave them. The hunt for artifacts that drives Dark Fall, and the scramble among the Magic Association to isolate them; the great effort to secure Lost Logia that guides the Time-Space Administration Bureau, and the hungry dreams of conquest at the black heart of many at Ends of the World. All of these things are an effort toward one goal: To secure the potential to grant miracles.
On an OOC level, needless to say that miracles will be closely monitored when they do come up. They happen pretty rarely, in play, but are not so far beyond reach that people don't seek for them... indeed, the hunt for miraculous artifacts is that most vital step one in most dark schemes of any true danger.
The fact that miracles can wake the dead should not be taken lightly, nor should it be taken for granted. A TP with a miracle at its heart might allow for players who die during it to be restored to life; but don't jump off a bridge at the first opportunity on the idea that Sailor Moon will wish upon her magic rock to revive you. Miracles aren't that common, and frivolous abuse of their existence will lead to them being absent when you need them. By the same token, the handful of people with ready access to a miracle-granting artifact should please not use them frivolously, and not at all without prior staff discussion and approval.
- Serenity's Final Decree
- Make sure to read about the most important miracles in the history of Earth: the three Wishes that Queen Serenity made during the death throes of her idyllic realm.
- The Fourth Wish
- Thousands of years after Serenity's Final Decree, in June 2015, another miracle was born from the Wish of a girl.
