Category:Potentials

Potentials are those who can wield the power that the Dragons left to humanity, a gift known most commonly as Practice. When the Dragons died, they engraved an imprint onto the souls of humanity, and from their fall they forged a well of power that would allow some of humanity to use that imprint. It is believed that the Dragons had meant to give a much greater gift to humanity, but if that was the case they must have failed. Yet in that failure they granted a small portion of humanity the ability to shape reality through a Focus, a central concept to the soul of the Potential, that is never known until the Potential Awakens.

Exactly what makes a Potential what they are is entirely unknown. There is no pattern to it, beyond the more sweeping patterns in Focus of the First and Second Awakenings, and with the Third even that has fallen apart. What they can do is far easier, however. Every Potential is capable of limited manipulation of reality through the avenue of their Focus. They cannot work outside of these, and so it would be impossible for a Potential with the Focus of Mending to use the Practice in the creation of a weapon. They could, however, repair a Practiced weapon, or even an artifact designed for war. Mending Focused are actually almost unique in that regard, in their ability to repair broken objects of Practice. Given how difficult it is to actually break a Practiced Artifact, this is a rarely used gift, but it has saved some Potentials years of work.

More recently, the idea of working outside of one's Focus has become seen as more possible, if with heavy limitations. The Unisonbound are explicitly capable of it when acting in concert with their Platforms and, at the Second Battle of Sol, President Amanda Hawk demonstrated an unprecedented ability to work outside of her Focus through Practiced Words. Although President Hawk is currently the only Potential who has shown direct aptitude with this ability, it is unlikely to be something that only she is capable of.

More generally, all Potentials exhibit certain shared traits:

• They can survive without need for a spacesuit in a vacuum.
• They are far more durable than 'normal' humans, and their reflexes run about 20% higher.
• A powerful drive towards a certain ideal, represented most clearly by their Focus.

Although there are many benefits to their body's nature as Practiced Vessels, there are downsides too. Among them is:

• A complete inability to benefit from nano-based treatments.
• A likewise total inability of their body to accept transplants.

Both of the above can be counteracted by a Restorer Focused, those with Focuses of Mending, Healing, etc. who are capable of repairing Practiced Artifacts.