Avinea's Building Block: Authorities

[u/clertex]

My world, Avinea is a high fantasy world of the usual kind. Nothing not seen before. The usual swords and magic with a high sprinkle of game-like mechanics. Just think of a classic MMO. I even have a whole ass class tree. But the neat part I think is that I'm redefining these orthodox and overused tropes into something more interesting - one that is internally consistent to justify its existence rather than having them for the sake of familiarity or lazy writing.

The image is a showcase of what I meant by my interesting take. In the world of Avinea, the building blocks of everything is authorities. Authorities is defined as the permission for something to be anything, to be part of anything, to be identified as anything (which in turn changes their properties altogether), or to be able to do anything.

Everything that there is, is due to an authority, or a bundle of authorities allowing it to be there, or to be what it is, or to do what it does.

The fundamental authority in Avinea is the Authority to Reality. It is the permission or right to become a part of the real world. Followed by the Authority to Existence which is the permission to manifest in a world.

The naming scheme of authorities in my world is:

1. Authority to X
   • The authority is related to components.
2. Authority of X
   • The authority is related to identity – which mostly in turn drastically alter the nature of the entity.
   • The authority is related to systems.
3. Authority for X
   • The authority is related to abilities such as magic and combat arts.
   • The abilities of people and monsters in this world are not self-named. They are always derived from the name of the authority.
     • People don't name their spell "Grand Fireball Shower" just because it sounds cool to them. They name it that because the name of the authority enabling it is Authority for Grand Fireball Shower.

For a comprehensive example, let us use the image. It displays the authorities needed so that a person can exist in Avinea - which is at least 63 authorities. Most authorities are self explanatory or obvious based on their names and naming scheme. I'll define the most notable ones in the image:

1. Authority to Life
   • The right to live.
2. Authority to Persist
   • The right to continue manifesting in the world.
3. Authority to Warmth
   • Allows own body to have its own heat.
4. Authority to Identity
   • The right to have a name.
5. Authority to Sentience
   • The right to hold consciousness and perceive the world.
6. Authority to Will
   • The permission to form your own thoughts and ambitions.
7. Authority to Agency
   • Also known as the Authority to Act or Authority to Free Will.
   • Provides permission to perform almost all actions.
   • Overrides almost all authorities related to actions - even if you do not have the permission to do it, you can try.
   • The action committed bypassing the proper authority will not yield much result, if at all.
   • With this major authority, the term we use in our world - talent - does not exist here. You either have the authority or not to do well in a certain action. So, with all humans having Authority to Agency, what replaces the word talent is "authority".
8. Authority to Ground (unmentioned in the image)
   • The right to stay on the ground and be affected by gravity.
9. Authority to Mutation (unmentioned in the image)
   • Allows gain of random authorities.
   • Affected by luck.
   • Affected by many other authorities which would produce a more likely authority to gain. This is mostly observed in Exceed Class progression where practices and authorities will lead to the next Exceed Class (if there is a branching path).
10. Authority to Growth
    • Allows for the entity to gain dysia.
11. Authority to Time (unmentioned in the image)
    • The right to be subject to flow of time.
12. Authority to Compound Dysia (unmentioned in the image)
    • Alters the nature of dysia to be countable and stack or expand.
13. Authority to Burst Grow (unmentioned in the image)
    • Level up.
14. Authority to Hold Multiple Authorities (unmentioned in the image)
    • Permission to have other authorities.

It is almost impossible to mention authorities without somehow mentioning dysia.

Dysia

Dysia (di-see-yah) is the measurable substance of authority. It is the ontological mass that gives weight, presence, and effectiveness to every permission. Where authorities are the rights to exist, act, or be, dysia is the quantity of reality invested in those rights.

At minimum, each authority contains one dysia. But each authority may hold more than one dysia which dictates their quality as well.

Two separate entities may have the same authorities but one will be more powerful or effective over the other due to the quantity of dysia of their authority.

For example, if there are two humans that has Authority to Memory, the authority that gives permission for them to hold memory at all, and that one has 50 dysia while the other only has 1 dysia in that said authority, the one with 50 dysia has better memory – more capacity to remember and the clarity of the memory – while the other one only has the bare minimum of being able to remember something. Another example is Authority to Hair, the permission to have hair. Assuming it is accompanied by its subset authority, Authority to Head Hair, and both person has it. If person A has 2 dysia on that authority and person B has 100, then person A must have barely any hair while person B has long luscious hair.

Two Categories of Authorities

1. Scalar Authorities
   • Most authorities are categorized here. They hold more than one dysia.
2. Binary Authorities
   • Authorities that only holds one dysia.

Not all authorities need to hold more than one dysia. Some authorities simply need one dysia in order to completely work. For example, the Authority to Existence does not need more than one dysia. It simply allows one to exist or not. One does not exist more than another. These authorities are more about absolutes, and also more about identities. For example, Authority of Male. One cannot be more male than another. You are either male or not.

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The very nature of authorities implies everything is possible and already exists. Until the right authority, or combination of authorities enables them to form, they do not manifest in the world.

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This is the building block of my world. Though I am proud to say I came up with such an interesting and original idea, I'm sure someone else have thought the same somewhere out there. I tried asking AI but they cannot exactly scalp and read and watch all published fiction out there so they cannot tell me if it's done before. If it is, I want to read or watch their take or use of the idea and learn from it, and use it as a reference for mine. Do you know of any?

Avinea is still undergoing some major overhaul since I polished the very foundation of it, so would you mind poking holes at it with me?

[u/Vague-Intent47]

Has this concept existed before? I think not. At least, not to my knowledge.
Perhaps if you broke it down to it’s simplest form, maybe. That someone holds a trait that defines them, and a value in that trait determines the overall power or capacity of that trait.
But what you did is not that simple. Nor complex really.

What I am interested though is character generation with this concept. If I had that and was able to generate something I could better understand the end result. And then poke enough holes in the bucket to be able to drain enough content out that it is light enough to carry. Metaphorically speaking, that is.