The Borderlands

A modern-day fantasy setting

Between Faery and the Mundane lie the Borderlands, neither wholly one nor the other. After a long period where the worlds were drifting apart, they have begun moving closer together, overlapping. Why? When will it stop? Will it?

Low Fantasy/High Action

Characters are individual quite competent, even powerful, within their areas of expertise, but they are small fish in a very big sea--and there are things in that sea that can swallow them whole without even noticing

Regions

• Mundania The Real World. No magic. Background Power Level 0.
• Twilight Zone Areas of the Real World where magic has bled in; this is where monsters hunt, and where much of the action takes place. Background Power Level 1.
• Borderlands. The region between the Real and the Fantastic. The Borderlands lag behind Mundania by about a generation (~50-60 years) in terms of technology and architecture; in general only those things that are hallowed by use, particularly inheritance, have weight and presence in the Borderlands, and even then often appear as mythic distortions of their Mundane counterparts. Background Power Level 2.
• Faery the Magic Lands. Home to Elves, Trolls, Dwarves. The time lag is even more severe, by about a factor of ten (~500-600 years). Background Power Level 3+
• Outer Planes Heaven and Hell, basically. Home to Angels and Demons. The time lag is even more severe, by another factor of ten (~5000-6000 years). Background Power Level 7+

Limitations on Travel

No entity can travel to a region with a Background Power Level more than one level different from the entity's innate power level (POW Apt), without either shedding excess power or temporarily gaining power (e.g. through a spell or device). E.g. A Mundane (POW Apt 0) is native to Mundania, can enter the Twilight Zone, but not travel to the Borderlands; a Vampire Lord (POW Apt 3) is native to Faery, can enter the Borderlands, but cannot enter the Twilight Zone (and prey on Mundane humans) without shedding excess power and in effect making himself a mere POW Apt 2 creature. Few Vampire Lords would be willing to do so unless the need was great, so Mundanes (even Mundane adventurers) have little fear of meeting up with one.

Types

• Nulls Mortals with absolutely no Power (POW 0). They cannot see or interact with fantastic creatures except in terms of Mundane world references (e.g. a werewolf would just be a wolf or a big dog to a Null). Nulls can accidentally enter the Twilight Zone, but are never aware of doing so. Supernatural powers have no effect on Nulls, including Supernatural defensive powers (e.g. immunity to non-silver weapons); this means that Nulls are dangerous to Supernaturals. What's more, a wound delivered by a Null cannot be healed by magic, so it must heal normally--and Supernatural creatures cannot use any magic until such wounds are healed. Since Nulls make up about 1/6 of the human population, Supernaturals who prey upon mortals are wary about running into Nulls, at least if they're smart.
• Mundanes Ordinary mortals, who might have a small amount of power (POW Apt 0 = POW 1-2), and little or no sensitivity (Intuition Apt 0 = INT 1-2)
• Sensitives Mortals with the Sight, but little other power (INT Apt >= 1, POW Apt 0)
• Touched Mortals who have had some brush with the supernatural, which has altered them, and made them not completely suited to the mundane world. (POW Apt 1 = POW 3-5, INT Apt 0)
• Fay Mortals who have some taint of Faery blood, but can still pass in the mundane world. People who are Fay always strike Mundanes as eccentric at the very least. (POW Apt 1, INT Apt 0).
• Kindred Mortals who have immediate Faery or Supernatural ancestry. Cannot pass without the use of magic; many cannot enter the Real World farther than the Twilight Zone. POW Apt 1-2, Int Apt 0-2, Fault: Unusual Appearance.
• Faery Generic term for all the immortal* dwellers in Faery (but not the undead). POW Apt 2+

* Immortal in this case means cannot die of natural causes, although they may be killed (with difficulty) by weapons or magic.

Mojo

Stories are magic, and the ability to manipulate magic is tied into the ability to cast your actions in terms of a story. Mojo is the amount of magical "juice" you currently have available to cast yourself as the protagonist/antagonist, or at least a pivotal role, in the story that the magic wants to play out. Mojo has very little effect in the Mundane world, but it is paramount in the Supernatural realms.

Generally, things that make you "cool" increase your mojo. E.g. wearing a duster, negligently lighting or flicking away a cigarette while being threatened, suddenly appearing backlit, crashing in through a skylight, putting on dark glasses at night...

Mojo is used to power up abilities, rather than to cast spells directly (Spell Casting is a mojo-powered ability, however, so you need to spend mojo to have the ability to cast spells, but the spells themselves don't cost mojo). Mojo powers last until the user powers them down (which she may need to do to make room for a new mojo power), or the user loses all his mojo due to external factors. Powering up (or down) a mojo ability does not take an action. A user may have as many mojo abilities powered up at once as the user has POW Apt. A user may only have as many mojo abilities as the user has power (so powerful Supernaturals coming into the Twilight Zone or the Mundane world lose a lot of their innate abilities).

Example: Vampire Joe is using his Diguised As A Normal Person ability, but wants to feed. Since he can't gather mojo from Feeding while employing mojo, he has to let his disguise drop, revealing his "game face." Also, since Joe is currently in the Mundane world, he can only use one mojo ability at a time (his POW Apt can't be any greater than 1 or he wouldn't "fit"), so while he's Feeding he has neither Enhanced Senses nor Superhuman Physique going for him, so when Muffy The Vampire Slaughterer comes along he has to stop feeding or he's toast.

Finally, nobody can be killed unless their current mojo is 0. (That means that most mundanes can be killed at any time.) Thus, battles with or between supernaturals always involve actions designed to deplete the opponent's mojo before the coup de grace.

Losing Mojo

Whenever you take enough damage to equal a serious wound on the wound track, you lose a point of mojo. Mojo never goes below zero, but once you reach zero, then reaching Death on the wound track kills you. As long as you have mojo left, you are never worse than incapacitated, no matter how much damage you take.

Taking Damage

Unlike in Neng, damage in the Borderlands is not ablative. That is to say, it doesn't just keep accumulating, so that three three-point wounds = 1 nine-point wound. Instead, you take a wound of the appropriate size when you've taken as much damage in a single hit as the wound track indicates for that level of wound. Only when the category is full do you start taking wounds of one size higher.

E.g. A character has Health 4. The wound track looks like:

So if the character takes a 6 point wound, it's a light wound. She can take up to another three light wounds, but a fifth light wound would count as serious. On the other hand, a 13 point wound would be serious, even if she hadn't taken any light wounds yet. It's only serious wounds or higher that cost mojo.

Mundane Shticks

Mundanes have shticks not accessible to Supernaturals; they are able to notice the way that magic follows the lines of stories and use it to their advantage.  (Magic hates post-modernism so Supernaturals will never be able to notice this.)

Gifts and Faults