7 Deadly Considerations (ZixanDan's Espers)

Pride - Scaling

How big is the difference between a master and an amateur? Can the weak ever hope to challenge the strong?

     The difference between a master and an amateur is massive, but a master may still be defeated by an amateur or even by someone with no power. This would require cunning or advantageous circumstances to make up for missing power, but can be done. A master would most likely have some number of permanent spells active on themselves to provide protection. But since each spell requires at least one esper to maintain, even a master will have to be selective about what sort of protections to have active. On the other hand, the common populace has no such protections of their own but generally live in cities or towns that can support far more protective magic than any individual on their own. So an apprentice attacking his/her master would have a very difficult time of it, and a master attacking a cottage village may well find himself outmatched in turn.

Sloth - Limitations

Why don't people use it for literally everything? How often can they use this power? Can this power be nullified? Is there a specific weakness?

    The first reason people don't use it for everything is the cost in time, effort, and risk required to bond espers for use in spells. The second reason is that the knowledge of how to do any given thing with the magic system is not readily transferable from one person to another, making experimentation a necessary and dangerous part of any new spell. Last and least is that each bonded esper requires marks/taboos to maintain the bond which provides an upper bound on the number of spells any one person can have active at a time.
    This magic can be used as much as one wants, the power comes from the espers after all and is as natural to them as breathing is to us. It can however be restricted/inhibited by certain types of magic. In addition, many taboos do not care about the intention of the mage, allowing captivity to strip a mage of his power should his captors prevent his fulfilling those taboos.


Envy - Rarity

Who gets what powers? How rare is this power? Are these powers unique to each individual? What happens to the people without powers?

    Anyone with the daring to interact with espers and form bonds can acquire and develop this power. Making effective use of it requires abundant experimentation, which limits the masters to those who did their experimentation with a master to protect them and those with the absurd luck to emerge unscathed despite experimenting on their own. The powers acquired through bonding espers are themselves not unique, but their applications have great variety.
    Most without powers still have some investment in magic, as they bear bonds to espers linked with permanent magic used to protect and empower their cities and towns. If they leave the protections of their homelands, they will be out of reach of those protections and may become easy pray to magical creatures, violent mages, or even espers themselves. For this reason, most all travelling is done by experienced mages and merchants with protective magic that applies outside of towns or cities.

Lust - Cost

What do people have to sacrifice to use this power? Is there a payment and is it material or immaterial? does this power have side effects? How far are people willing to go to use this power? How desperate must you be to rely on this magic?

    The sacrifices required for this power vary wildly, but they fall into two categories: taboos and marks. Taboos are behavioral promises made by the mage to a bonded esper and may include such things as diet restrictions, speech patterns, rituals, and much much more. Most taboos fall into either daily, weekly, or situational frequencies. Marks on the other hand allow the esper to take a sort of physical form by taking over a part of the mage's body in terms of its physical appearance. Contracts with espers include at least one taboo and at most one mark. The side effects of using this power are concentrated in the taboos of maintaining a contract and the experimentation necessary to make effective use of the power.
    The lengths to which people will go to use this power depend largely on the needs and desires of the individual. For most this amounts to accepting the inconveniences of one or more taboos in order to maintain the spells their communities depend on. A much smaller group dedicate their lives to bonding espers and developing their abilities.

Greed - Opportunity

What is the source of this power? Do these abilities die with their wielder? Can this power be bought, sold, given, stolen, inherited, or discarded? Can it be found if searched for?

    This power comes from espers, beings of magic with no physical form. A mage must make contracts with espers in order to use magic. These contracts can be passed from person to person, but the skill to make use of the esper's power does not go with it. If a mage dies, any contracts they have at that time are lost, returning all their bonded espers to their natural state. These contracts may be bought, sold, given, or inherited. Since it requires the intention of both parties to transfer the contract, theft is impossible unless the theft is carried out in the form of a con. Espers can always be found at locuses, and frequently along the paths between. The locations of these locuses are only really known to those that travel with regularity. No great secrecy is to blame for lack of knowledge there, only lack of relevance and thus of interest. Thus anyone that wishes to find a locus could easily ask a traveler so long as one is in town.

Gluttony - Growth

What must be done to acquire more power? Are power increases done in small incriments or massive boosts? Is there a way to optimize growth?

    Growth is experienced in discrete events followed by extended experimentation to unlock the benefits. Most increases in power can be traced to additional bonded espers, but that benefit is not felt until experimentation has been done to learn how to effectively utilize that esper's power. Growth can be optimized by alternately bonding additional espers and conducting experiments to be able to use it.

Wrath - Stability

How easy is it to control this power? How do emotions affect this power? Does this power actually control the wielder? What makes the magic stronger or weaker in the moment?

    The power itself is not particularly susceptible to emotional influence and can be consistently used once learned. The only control the power exerts on the wielder is in the taboos that the wielder accepts in order to acquire the power and in any habits they may form in their usage of it. Momentary strength and weakness depends primarily on the relevance of a mage's learned spells to any given situation. A rare sort of spell can interfere with magic, making it less effective. And locuses drastically increase the effectiveness of magic matching their own types.