Guide to Winds of Change Powers
By Doug Linger.
Last updated: March 22, 1999.
These are the Powers used in the Winds of Change universe to date. More will be added as authors create them. Please note that these are only guidelines. Different characters with the same Power may have different power and skill levels, or slight differentiations in how it is used or how it manifests. Or, as Jon says, "Your mileage may vary."
The power to alter the shape of non-living matter. Mass and materials are not changed, just the shape they are in. A wooden table can be made more ornate, or into a large wooden chair, but not into a metal desk.
ANIMAL COMMUNICATION: The wielder can understand what an animal is trying to "say" as it vocalizes. Some people can understand more species than others.
CHANGE EYE COLOR: The ability for the wielder to change the color of their own eyes or that of someone else, even to hues not normally seen in nature.
CLOAK: The power to become invisible. All other senses are still applicable, and a fringe effect, similar to heat waves over a road, can be seen if an observer is looking carefully.
CLONING: The ability to temporarily make one person into a duplicate of another. This applies to all physical characteristics, including gender, but does not duplicate memories or Powers. As with POLYMORPH, the wielder must acquire a shape before a clone of it can be made, and the shape will "reside in memory" in perpetuity. The new clone often has mental problems, especially immediately after this Power is used, due to the change in form. People with this Power often also have the ability to INDUCE NORM-SHIFT.
CONCUSSIVE FLASH: A exploding ball of energy that does no damage to its environs. When it explodes it releases a great amount of sound and light.
DEGREE CONTROL:People with this Power can change the human-animal ratio of their bodies. They cannot go entirely human, but can be very close. People with this Power can always NORM-SHIFT.
DESOLIDIFICATION: Often called Phasing by comic-book fans, wielders of this Power can bass through solid objects as easily as through air.
DISINTEGRATION: The destruction of matter. Any matter, living or nonliving, within a certain radius (usually small, a few meters) loses molecular cohesion.
DREAM RIDING: The wielder can see what another person is dreaming as it is being dreamt. Most people with this Power cannot influence the dreams they are seeing. This is likely a specialized form of TELEPATHY.
ELECTRICAL SUPPRESSION: The ability to cause electronic devices to cease functioning.
EMPATHY: Sensitivity to emotions. An individual with this Power always knows, or can always tell, how others are feeling, but not what they are thinking, as in TELEPATHY.
EYE BEAMS: Lasers shoot out of the individuals eyes. These can range from a mild sting to a very destructive force. It is unknown how people can see while using this Power.
FLIGHT: The power to fly without wings. Bird-morphs generally do not have this, since they don't need it. This could merely be a specific use of TELEKENISIS.
FLIGHTED: The power to fly with wings. Only bird-morphs have this, but not all bird-morphs do. Only, and all, those with wings in addition to arms do (approximately 50% of all bird-morphs). This could merely be a specific use of TELEKENISIS.
FORCE SHIELD: Similar to the KINETIC SHIELD, except it does not absorb kenetic energy, but merely disperses it. It also has less stopping power.
FORCE KNIFE: This makes claws or teeth penetrate especially well, able to cleanly cut steel.
HEALING: Someone with this Power will heal from injuries unusually fast. This Power usually activates even if the weilder is unconsious. Unlike a person with TOUCH OF LIFE, only the weilder gets the benefits of this Power.
HOLIGRAPHY: Much like PROJECTION, the wielder can create images to appear out of thin air. These constructs can be complicated enough to fool eyes and ears, but there is no scent and they are not solid. Unlike the other Power, the wielder's consciousness remains in his or her own body.
IDENTIFY: The power to detect other people with Powers and/or to tell precisely what that Power is.
ILLUMINATION: The ability to provide light, usually in the form of a hovering, insubstantial ball. This can range from a tiny glow that can barely illuminate a closet to what nearly amounts to artificial suns.
INDUCE NORM-SHIFT: The power to make another turn into the full animal form. This is usable even on people who otherwise cannot do so. The subject can change back at will, although all the dangers of a NORM-SHIFT are present.
JINX: This Power is entirely passive, yet still very dangerous. Any Power used against a wielder of this Power functions as expected. For a variable amount of time afterwards, however, the Power will go wildly out of control or in some other way malfunction. It is currently unpredictable how the Power will fail, or for how long. It is also largely involuntary.
KINETIC BLAST: Spheres of enormous kinetic energy. These can be thrown for varying amounts of damage, from a light punch to the equivalent of being hit by a moving train. The projectiles are powered by the KINETIC SHIELD.
KINETIC SHIELD: A kinetic-energy-absorbing wall that protects the wielder. These absorb kinetic energy and use it to create a KINETIC BLAST. An enormous amount of energy can be absorbed, but any energy stored must eventually be released.
LIGHTNING BOLT: An arc of electricity arcs from the wielder to the subject. The subject is electrically shocked, perhaps even elecrocuted.
LIQUID CONTROL: Rare outside of aquatic morphs, wielders of this Power are able to control liquids within their range. The range varies per wielder, and generally the more types of liquid able to be controlled (like blood, water, juices, etc.), the shorter the range. The control manifests itself as a for of TELEKENISIS applicable only on liquids.
LOCATION: The weilder can find any object, or type of object, so long as he is familiar with it. For instance, Locating a watch will simply point him at the nearest watch; Locating a specific watch requires the weilder to know it fairly well. Trying to Locate, say, a car part would fail if the person did not know what the part was.
MAGNETISM: The ability to attract or repel metallic objects. Those objects do not need to be ferrous in nature, despite the name of the Power. This could merely be TELEKENISIS usable only on metals.
MALLEABILITY: The limited, localized liquification of the wielder's body. Puncture wounds seal like liquid behind the intrusive material, and blunt objects may bend but not break bones. It is unknown how many damaging events can be deferred at once before the wielder begins to actually take damage. Burns, chemical weapons, and energy weapons such as EYE BEAMS cannot be deferred by this Power.
MENTAL BARRIER: The ability to shield one's mind from mind-oriented Powers, such as TELEPATHY or SUGGESTION. The wielder is made immune, or at least resistant, to such Powers. Most wielders of those Powers can do this, as well.
MICROSCOPIC VISION: The ability to see items normally too small to be seen without artificial enhancements. Morphs who are birds-of-prey have this naturally, but it is not considered a Power; it is only considered a Power in a morph whose normal animal does not have such excellent eyesight.
MIND-WRITING: The ability to take images from someone's mind and reproduce it exactly on paper. This is likely a specific form of TELEPATHY.
MULTI-MORPH: A very limited form of POLYMORPH, in which two or more unrelated forms are accessable by the wielder. It is limited in that the forms are apparently pre-set for each wielder, and the repetoire cannot be changed or added to. Nobody with this Power is known to have more than seven separate forms, including the "base" morph.
NORM-SHIFT: The ability to become the full animal shape of whatever morph the wielder is. Someone who is part fox, for instance, can become what is to all senses a normal fox. This is the most common Power, with approximately 60% of the worlds population having it. This Power is mildly dangerous to the wielder, in that instincts are much more prominant when in animal form. There is also the danger of the wielder losing their mind to the animal, although this danger can be reduced greatly with practice.
NULLIFY: The ability to negate another person's Power. The subject's power simply does not work when it is attempted to be used. Some wielders of this Power can apply it to an object; afterwards, Powers will not be useful against that object.
ORACLE: The ability to predict the future. Like the legendary Oracles, however, such predictions are rarely clear, even to the wielder. As a result, there is some debate as to whether this is truly a Power. This is different from REPLAY in that the wielder does not actually live through the future; rather the visions appear metaphorically in dreams or sudden fugues.
PLASMA BLAST: The wielder can convert matter to energy with extreme efficiency (much higher then nuclear reactions, although much lower than antimatter). This energy can be stored in the wielder's body, and emitted at will, usually through the eyes or mouth.
POLYMORPH: The ability to change into any animal morph. This is a much broader type of shapeshift than a TYPE-SHIFT and is very, very rare. The wielder must first acquire by touch a shape before it can be used. This acquisition causes the wielder to faint or nearly do so; forever after, however, the wielder can turn to a morph of the acquired type at will.
POWER DETECTION: The wielder can detect another person's Power, but only if it is being used at the time. Inactive Powers are undetectable. The wielder also gains some intuitive knowledge of the nature of Powers that are successfully detected. However, this knowledge is not by any means all-informitive.
PROJECTION: The power to project a polymorphous, non-solid but visible construct away from the body. The true body appears to go to sleep, and the wielder senses through the construct. Sight and hearing can be utilized, taste and touch cannot. It is unknown whether scents can be smelled by the construct and, through it, the wielder. The construct can be used up to approximately one mile from the sleeping body.
PYROKENESIS: The wielder can cause flammable objects to spondaneously combust. Some people can cause flames to appear without any known source, and hence can throw firefalls. A few individuals can also control the shape of the flames, but this may be TELEKENESIS applied at the same time.
REPLAY: The power to travel through small amounts of time, in the range of minutes. It takes a corresponding amount of effort to go back further; while it is nearly effortless to go back one minute, going back ten makes the wielder exhausted. This is not physical time travel; the user's psyche enters his own body at the appropriate time. Thus to anyone except the wielder, it appears to be precognition. A time period, once played a second time, may not be played again; events occurring the second time through cannot be altered, except perhaps by another wielder of this Power.
RETRIEVAL: The wielder can teleport objects he is not holding to him, so long as he knows exactly where the object is and it is within range.
SONIC SCREAM: An enhanced roar or yell that can cause physical damage. This is generally quite damaging, but can be made even more so with effort. It is possible though difficult to focus the effect in a certain direction.
SPEED: Running extremely fast. People have been clocked running more than 100 mph (160 kph).
SPLIT: The wielder can physically serperate his instincts from his human self. This Power is more common in morphs with intsincts that are already nearly sentient, but this is by no means universal.
STICKING: Adherance to walls or ceilings. Although usually done with the hands and feet, other parts of the body may be used to cling. The laws of leverage still apply; someone with this Power could not walk up a wall while perpendicular to it as if it were horizontal. This Power will work through thin clothing, like socks or most gloves, but will not work through shoes.
STRENGTH: The wielder's muscles are much more powerful than normal. The wielder can lift items which mormally require cranes, and is also protected from the effects of his own Power, in that they not only can punch through steel but will not pulp their hand in doing so.
SUGGESTION: The ability to make people do or believe things. The subject could be made to believe anything, even an obvious falsehood. The subject can also be made to do things that are against his self-intrest, although it is unknown whether it is powerful enough to cause someone to commit suicide. This could merely be a specific form of TELEPATHY.
TECHNOMANCERY: Whereby the user has the Power to influence any single powered device equipped with circuitry, i.e. interact with a computer on a level deeper than machine language. This interaction may range from probing a circuit for faults to "possessing" a computer or computer-controlled device and controlling it as one does their own body. 'Mancing of an entire network of computers dramatically reduces the Technomancer's abilities and places great strain on them, resulting in physical exhaustion and, if left unaided, eventual death. This Power is rare.
TELEKENISIS: The ability to move objects without touching them. Objects must be within line of sight, and usually within view as well. Different people have different strengths of this Power; some can lift cars, while some can only move a book.
TELEPATHY: The ability to talk mind-to-mind. This often has several adjunct Powers as well: the ability to look for familiar minds in a crowd, and the ability to read thoughts. These are all easier to utilize when the recipient is willing, but can be done with an unwilling subject.
TELEPORTATION: The power to move instantly from one point to another. There are two known variations on this ability: 1) The wielder can travel to any point within line-of-sight, meaning there can be no obstacles between the endpoints, and 2) The wielder can travel to any point in view; it needs to be looked at. Only the second method allows artificial views to be used, such as television pictures or photographs, although this trait is not universal. Wielders of both variations can visit anyplace they can remember well enough, although "well enough" varies widely. Theoretically wielders of this Power can visit other planets and stars; however, none have yet claimed to do so, suggesting a spacial limit. This limit, if it exists, is definitely greater than the diameter of Earth.
TEMPERATURE CONTROL: The ability to raise or lower the temperature in rooms or objects -- including people -- by several degrees.
TEMPORAL ECHO: Wielders of this Power can "attune" themselves to the structure, they can call up everything that's ever happened inside it or just around it. It is similar in effect as reading minds like in TELEPATHY, but somehow usable on objects without minds.
TIME DISTORTION: The ability to speed up or slow down time. This is subjective; to anyone else time flows normally. But a person who subjectively slowed time to dodge a bullet will seem to others to have extremely fast reflexes and move incredibly quickly.
TOUCH OF DEATH: The ability to cause the electricity in a subject's body to short ciruit. The nervous system, including brain tissue, essentially is destroyed. The subject must be touched for this power to be weilded.
TOUCH OF LIFE: The ability to cause injury to heal much faster than normal. Unlike HEALING, this is usable by the wielder on either himself or a subject, but a subject must be touched to be healed. It is unknown whether this will work to eliminate disease.
TRANSFORMATION: The power to change a subject from one morph to another, permanently. This can only be done on a new morph, ie pubescents, before their genes have stabilized in the new form. This can only be done once per person. Unlike the original Change, new morph is not randomly picked, although the Powers are re-randomized. Generally the new Powers are very different from the old.
TYPE-SHIFT: The power to change into any morph of a certain type, such as any birds, or lizards, or horses, or dinosaurs, etc. This is an uncommon Power but far more common than the POLYMORPH. The range of shapes available vary widely among people with this Power, with some people restricted to a certain Genus while others may select any from a certain Family, Superfamily, or Order. The range available always includes the wielder's "base morph".
WARP TELEPORT: A person with this Power can go anywhere almost instantaneously. This version is slightly different from TELEPORT in two minor ways. The first is that there is a "warp effect" similar to that seen on certain science-fiction television shows directly (except for Earth's curvature) between the beginning and destination. The second difference is that this Power is slightly longer (on the order of a few seconds only), possibly due to energy being diverted to create the warp effect. No distinct purpose has been found for this effect.