Five Earths, All in a Row

[Prince Charon]

Sanctity, or Astral Resonance

Sanctity is one of several terms used on the various Earths to refer to something that some of the more scientifically-minded psychics on Infopunk Earth have begun calling 'Astral Resonance.' Broadly, this is the general power, density, and authority of spirits of a particular type over a location, and where that varies to an important degree, over an object (living or otherwise), action, or time. The stronger the resonance, the less difficult it tends to be to get spirits of a particular type to enact a spell, and the more influence spirits of a particular type have on spells that did not invoke them (or were not intended to). Some of these are fairly obvious: Sun spirits will be more relevant at noon than at midnight, but will have greater resonance in a greenhouse or a sun temple at any time of day than they do in a typical basement; spirits of love and lust get a boost around St. Valentine's Day, but in part of Chicago, so do spirits of murder and (organized) crime; spirits of ending and renewal are stronger on December 31st and January 1st, but are also stronger in a hospital.

To clarify some terms: 'Density' is perhaps the simplest, being the number of spirits of a particular type in a volume of space. 'Power' is how powerful the spirits of that type are, who are either in the area or paying attention to the area (this can vary by a lot depending in the whims of gods and other major spirits, and the skills of psychics in the area at attracting that attention). 'Authority' is a bit more vague; part of it is how closely related to this situation at this time spirits of that type are, and thus the order of precedence; another aspect, relating to specific spirits of that type that are in the area or paying attention to the area, is their auctoritas relative to other spirits of different types that are in the area. It is the combination of all these factors that determines how 'strong' or 'weak' the resonance of that type of spirit is for a given situation.

Naturally, there will be multiple resonances overlapping in any given place or situation. (Sanctity is more narrow in actual use, as those who use the term most often refer to the resonance of the types of spirits that they are most used to invoking.) Imagine a house in a forest, at a bend in a river. One of the native tribes of the Americas once used the area as a burial ground, but were sent west to a reservation in the desert well before the first house was built on the site. The previous house had a happy and loving family in it for many years, until a serial killer came and murdered them. The killer set the house on fire to hide the evidence, but was trapped within and burned to death. Later, the land was bought, and a new house was built on the location. Think of how many resonances of various strengths overlap on that house and its yard at any given time.

All that said, it's not unusual for one or two resonances to stand out strongly over others in one area most of the time. The Sahara has a much stronger Earth (Sand) resonance than it does a Water resonance, even during the rare rains. Rome's City resonance is ancient and powerful, and its Imperial resonance lingers on quite strongly due to association, to the point that on Infopunk Earth, Rome's Imperial resonance is stronger than London's, despite the Roman Empire having been smaller, and dead for longer (though London on Dieselpunk Earth and especially Steampunk Earth has it beat in that area).


Mechanicswise, of course, all this only matters if your game uses complex resonances. If the GM and players just want to treat it all as unaspected 'psychic Sanctity' or 'psi mana' and not worry about which spirits matter more in each context, that's fair. All rules in GURPS are basically optional. If you want the complexity (and are the GM), I suggest listing the ones that you think will apply, and being prepared to fudge any that your players surprise you with, as you would if you were doing complex Aspected Mana zones or ley lines.



Thoughts?