The #impact of the sword in her gut was so slight that she didn't even feel the pain for a moment, just a sharp, searing heat. Steam hissed as her flesh quenched the blade.
"Ah, yes, this is a good one," the smith said, smiling.
"Will she live?"
"Maybe. Who cares?"

Inspiration: impact
Potential: high
Notes: She does live, maybe because the person who asked cared enough to try and save her. And she does have a weird magical link to this evil (well, it's forged that way, at least) sword, which would complicate some things.

Some people's magic comes upon them like a thunderstorm, complete with little bolts of lightning appearing around them. Some people's comes like an explosion of fairy glitter. Some people's magic shows no signs at all--and those are the ones you need to watch out for. Some people's magic shifts the light around them when they cast, a pretty effect that won't ruin any of their clothes, although it does make choosing some colors to wear inadvisable. My magic? Well, my magic makes me look like I just had a twenty-five pound bag of flour upended over me. I could be a pretty good clown, I guess, but I never much liked having people laugh at me, even if it was provoked by something I did on purpose to make them laugh. It isn't actually flour, either--that at least would give me a nice side-line, providing gently used flour to cheap bakers, like that sea mage I heard about who always gets fish rained upon him when he casts his magic. Now he just sets out nets around him first, then sells his catch after he's worked whatever sea magic it was he meant to work. It isn't flour, it isn’t talc, it isn't anything else we've identified yet, but it sure does look like I maddened a baker whenever I cast magic. Dust-cloths are a must.


Inspiration: Photo of man with flour. http://www.flickr.com/photos/moritzaust/11842232364/
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Eh, a bit too kitschy, maybe?

Mascots, they call us, and I guess they're sort of right. For certain sure, they don't think of us as the shamans at the ritual sacrifice sports, channeling the power of the watching millions into great works of magic for the benefit of all mankind. but let me tell you, if there wasn't a goofy gopher jumping around in the middle of the football game, global warming would have wiped out all of humanity by now. Sure, you can say what you like, but it's a damn hard field to get into. A young magician’s game, or at least a game for a magician who's mastered the Stone and can keep him (or her, but like all the physical, it's more likely to be a he) self in good enough shape for the full scene. Sure, you hear that it's usually just a team of different guys from the cheer team or whatever they call it, switching off inside the suit. That may be true sometimes, but it makes weak magic. Some of the sacrifice has to be ours, in sweat and vertigo and the exhaustion that comes after the dozenth triple-flip. Sure, we can prank the players--after all, the joker and the jester have their places in magic--and we can launch small prizes into the air for random fans who are not, after all, as random as you might think, but it comes down to the flat out exertion, the sweat and the synchronized chanting, the risk of permanent damage, and the managing to focus the will and the energy of the crowd watching as well as the tenuous links to all the home viewers.


Inspiration: Hulu screenshots from "Behind the Mask"
Story potential: Medium.
Notes: This is probably actually high potential, but not for me. I'm not enough of a sports fan to do a decent job with it as a main thing.

Ordering color is a bit trickier than you might expect. First, there are always the colors that people associate with the province or town, which in our case means quite a bit of different shades of blue. We need blue for clothes, flowers, the sky, water, and the cliffs that litter our province. It's an important part of everything, and because it isn't fixed in place--can't be, since this is a public resource and not just someone's painting or postcard--it tends to drain off and be drawn to the places that can afford very little color of their own. It wouldn't be so bad if that didn't take away our color, too. We get a fair amount of tourism, and part of that is the color of the nature landscape. I've got a standard ordering chart for different times of the year, so that we can pull back and replenish at least the most famous areas, the ones that are really important to both our identity and the tourist trade. Even in hard times, that gets ordered right after the food. After the basic package, though, it becomes a lot more tricky. There are certain shades of blue and green that belong with ice and snow, though a lot of places skimp on color in the winter, reasoning that gray and white are after all perfectly natural colors that will stick around on their own. Some clothes are color-fixed, but those are generally quite expensive, and a crowd scene becomes grim itself when everything around it is. It also emphasizes the class barrier in a way that I don’t think is quite healthy.


Inspiration: A reminder email about ordering new printer ink.
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Very low.

Raunchy like a hurricane is maybe not the first thing that most people would think when they saw a woman wearing tropical clothing sitting in a chair in the middle of winter, but it's all a matter of perspective. Think of the sand, wear the clothes, imagine hurricanes or both weather and alcoholic varieties, and think of being on a beach. If you lie to your brain convincingly enough, you'll succeed in something. What you succeed in kind of depends on how you've been trained or where your talent is or simply which direction the luck is blowing on that day. Maybe you'll transform the back 40 into a tropical paradise (it's been known to happen--the person in question then went on to have a very, very successful tiki bar in the middle of Wisconsin until the weather wore off). Maybe you'll transport yourself to Fiji without having to pay the extortionate airline fee. Maybe you'll just discover that you can work your way into a state of mind where the weather doesn't affect you. That can be pretty darn useful in some occupations, like snowblower operator on the interstate. Maybe you'll summon up a bronzed cabana boy who wants nothing more than a vacation in a snowy cabin with a cuddly woman. It just depends. One person to try it that I know of got beaned by a flying manta ray. I know that it really depends, is all. On the other hand, it's usually less potentially harmful than some other kinds of magic that people try with a lot less hesitation. Love magic. Employment magic. Healing magic. All of those things have one heck of a lot more possible downsides, again, depending on all the things I mentioned above. It's not like you can open a book to a recipe for something, cast the spell, and get the something. It just doesn't work that way, contrary to all our initial expectations. Frustrates the scientists who try to get some "cross-discipline synergy" working to no end, I'll tell you that.


Inspiration: "Rock You Like a Hurricane" - Scorpions + http://www.flickr.com/photos/closetartist/8477937231/
Story potential: High.
Notes: I like the kind of screwed-up magic realism weirdness of this magical "system." Nice change from the more methodical and reliable kinds usually read about. Could be a whole hell of a lot of fun to write.

The clouds they came a-rushing in, she remembered that much. But no rain. That was the uncanny thing about them. All week, for a full week, storm clouds rushed past overhead, above the city. It was so dark that people took to carrying lanterns with them as they went about their days and all the houses burned candles all day long, but there was no rain and there was no storms. The market farmers complained that their crops were being ruined because there was no sun, but they only complained a little, quietly, as was their right. They never suggested that the wizards were in the wrong. There was a sudden bounty of baby potatoes and pickled green tomatoes and squash flowers sold because the farmers knew they'd never grow into squash, not with the light as it was. The worst of it was, she thought in retrospect, that none of them knew how long there would be no sunlight. The prime minister did, presumably, and the mages had a plan, she supposed, but nobody told the common people. The prices of lamp oil and charcoal and candles all tripled in that week, as people started thinking of how they would live inf the dark lasted beyond a week. Maybe it would last a month, maybe longer. Everyone was willing to sacrifice since everyone knew enough about the enemy and its nature that they didn't want to end up there, but everybody still hurt.


Inspiration: The weather. All storm clouds, no rain.
Story potential: High.
Notes: I do like this perspective on the whole war magic thing. Kind of an England during the Blitz, but different.

Pluck the tiger's teeth from his jaw and burn the phoenix in her blood. She winced as she read the instructions. "Are you going to tell me that this is allegory or that these are actually terms for different herbs?" she asked her teacher, a note of hope in her voice. He shook his head. "Nope. But it isn't about the animals, either. The Phoenix and the Tiger are-well, all right, you may decide to call them allegories. If you are ever in a situation where you need this spell, they are--well, they could be all sorts of things. They could be situations, they could be people, they could even be the animals themselves. The spell isn't clear, really, and it's been over 500 years since we had a recorded casting of it. But all the wizards who have glanced at it have shuddered and said that they think it will work." She glanced at the instructions again and shuddered herself. "Is it worth it?" "Look at what the spell is for. Do you think that if you ever need to cast a spell like that, you will hold back at anything? It's not black and evil magic, if that's what you're asking. There's no child of your blood sacrifice. Nothing like that. This spell is more of a--challenge. It's not about doing something bad, 9it's about figuring out where these elements are and doing what you must to activate or destroy them. As you can imagine, it's not something that a person would do just for fun or to see if it works."


Inspiration: "Devouring Time" - Mark Growden
Story potential: High.
Notes: I suppose that this could be a high potential idea, in there somewhere. Maybe. Not sure.

I was a bit on the fence about whether or not I should purchase the next game in the special updated version or if I should just wait for the late release mass market version, but they were clear that there were a bunch of things in the special version that would never be available again. It wasn't on the free-net, either. Yes, I checked, and I know I shouldn't. It's just--I was a little leery about purchasing anything that came packaged in an actual, verified and certified, human skull. Seems like bad juju, you know. Sure, sure, you can laugh at me for living in the modern century and having a bit of the old world superstition, but it's how my grandma raised me. And believe you me, after you've seen the bad (or good) come back around on the person who did it, you get a little more careful. It's reassuring in a way. The police, the government, and society in general might not be able to regulate anyone anymore, no matter how many surveillance cameras they put up, but no matter if you think they got away with something, it's all going to circle back on them. So that's why I hesitated before I bought. Some bad juju you get from doing something blatantly bad. Some you get from doing something that you can kind of whitewash to yourself to try and make it look good, but it really isn't. Buying a human skull had the latter feeling. But my granny died a good ten years ago, and I'm a grown woman, and I really, really, really wanted that latest, greatest, never to be repeated game. So I sprung and bought it. Unfortunately.


Inspiration: Googled "Flaming" -> http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2013/04/16/the-flaming-lips-explain-new-album-the-terror/ (Yes, they're selling a 24-hour-long version packaged in a SKULL.)
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Eh.

It was very, very important to use the best representation you could make while doing representational magic, especially if you were trying to act against the force of nature, something strong enough to have become almost a god in its own right. It was rumored that in order to provide the cooling for the Queen's palace, the court devisor had spent three years constructing a clockwork scale of the universe, with a planet for the palace world and a tiny little miniature castle set in the very precisely measured location of it, all so that one could use an ice cube to cool the whole place. The ice cube, alas, was still necessary, which had become very critical during the ice shortage of '65. She didn't have a whole clockwork palace in the center of a clockwork universe, but then she was trying to do something significantly simpler. But still difficult. Instead of miniature planets in clockwork, she wrapped colored yarn around wooden balls to signify--


Inspiration: Cute yarn things!
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Not really a story idea, just a snippet from somewhere or other.

The under-priestess of the sect of absolute purity slammed her hand down on the bar counter again. "Another!" she demanded. Everyone in the bar held their breath. There were already six empty glasses lined up along the counter where the priestess had slammed them after she drank the highly alcohol, very peppery, and quite likely to lead to dancing contents. The bartender eased forward, mixed another swirling red drink, and cautiously slid it across the bar to her. The highest number anyone in that bar had seen a person consume was seven, and that was Big Ed, who they would have guessed was a half-ogre if anyone still believed that ogres existed. Priestesses were sweet, pure innocents who drank nothing but evaporated water that had been boiled into steam and recaptured so as to remove any harmful elements that might disrupt their purity. They ate nothing but vegetables. They had nothing but sweet sleep and innocent dreams. And that was as it should be, given the awesome power that they had bestowed upon them in return. They certainly didn't slam back...seven.


Inspiration: http://chaoticshiny.com/taverngen.php
Story potential: Medium.
Notes: Eh. Could be fun, but pretty much a standard high fantasy gimme.