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How can I explain the terraforming abilities of a reality warper?

Erebus

Troubadour
A reality warper has the power to manipulate reality. Users can create, shape and manipulate reality just by thinking about it, and may alter something as tangible as physics and the universe to something inconceivable like logic. The reality of the mortal realm is held together by a series of crisscrossing strings that are interconnected. These strings are tied to everything living and nonliving within the realm, connecting all things within a realm to each other, similar to a tapestry. A reality warper can see and mentally manipulate these strings to change the world around them, altering the physical and nonphysical to suit their purposes. To others, they can seemingly create things from nothing and can just as easily erase them from existence. This practically makes them a god in the eyes of others.

A warper can use his altering abilities to terraform an entire realm in his image, including climate, atmosphere, laws of physics, etc. Despite the popular belief however, they are not all powerful. A warper has complete control over his or her domain, which encompasses an area of 500 feet in all directions around them. In this space, their power is absolute, as they wield direct control over the area around them. Beyond this area, they can influence the strings of reality to a limited extent, but cannot guide it directly. This leads to the world changing in ways that the warper didn't intend or foresee. The individual can draw up a image of the world they want to create in a mental "rough draft" in their minds, from its creatures to the underlying physics. This image would come out perfectly within their domain. The farther out from that area, the less control they have over reality, the more likely it would deviate from their original vision. The resulting world will have similarities to the one that the individual wanted, but will be different in many ways that they didn't expect.

The other caveat is that while the warper has absolute control over their domain, The things within it are not made "permanent". Whatever creatures, people, or items created inside it cease to exist outside the domain, and are limited to the 500 feet area of the individual. This seems counter-intuitive. Where the warper wields complete control, his creations are not permanent fixtures of reality. Where he wields less power, the effects and changes are long lasting. How can this be the case?
 
I would say that inside the 500 feet area the warper actively changes reality. He has to focus on it to change it and he has to focus on it to keep it changed. If he lets go then it snaps back to the way it was, similar to a rubber band.

Outside the 500 foot area, it's not the warper who changes reality, but it's reality itself which changes to match the changed reality nearby. This makes the change passive instead of active, so it requires no attention. And since it's reality itself changing, there is nowhere to "snap back to". This makes it longer-lasting or even permanent.
 

Queshire

Auror
Plucking the strings that make up reality is like plucking the strings of a guitar. They vibrate. Close to a reality warper the warper can manage things, but when it get far away from the reality warper the vibrations of a greater changes causes it to shake itself apart. In comparison the lesser energy that goes into a lesser change ensures that the vibrations aren't as violent. As such the change remains without shaking itself apart.
 
So, to get this straight: if a warper changes the reality throughout the surrounding 500 feet of themself, and then moves 100 feet, does the part of the changed reality that is now more than 500 feet away from them cease to be under their direct control, and start morphing into things they didn't expect?

If that's the case, then no change a warper can make would ever be permanent, unless they always stay in the same spot.

But really, it's kind of like the warpers have an extension of their arms, for 500 feet. We can pick up, manipulate, and control items that are within reach of our arms. We can sometimes affect something out of our reach, though not as reliably as things within our reach. For example, if you're bowling, the ball is within reach of your arm, but the pins are not. You can knock the pins down by rolling the ball at them, but you don't have control over the ball once it leaves your hand. You might hit the pins. You might miss. If you do hit the pins, you might get all of them, just one of them, or anything in between. A well practiced bowler knows how to aim the ball so that it hits most of the pins more often than not, but even they can't guarantee that they'll get a strike every time.

So, if we say a warper has non-material "arms" that reach 500 feet, then it makes sense that they can completely control reality within that range, and that they might have imperfect control for a certain range beyond that.
 

Almyrigan Hero

Minstrel
I'd just divide the 500ft radius and the longer-ranged reality warping into two separate, but related, powers; which achieve similar effects, but by different means.

Think of the string as though it were elastic, if you will. Over the 500ft radius, you're actively hooking your finger around the middle of the string and pulling it where you want it. And it will go wherever you want it, but there's a catch; when you let go, the tension releases, and it returns to its neutral position. Long-range reality warping, however, would be more like adding or removing slack. Feeding it in and out through the needle's eye, heating or cooling the material so it expands or contracts, whatever analogy works best. It can only sag so low under its own weight, or pull up so high against itself, and you can't move it side to side, but it does, at least, stay where you put it.

Granted, that creates the problem of, "why don't they just use method B within the 500ft radius, to make permanent changes where they still have complete control?," but frankly, near-omnipotence can only really be either so logical, or so limited. The closest I can think is another metaphor, wherein having too many loose strings dangling right by you runs the risk of getting you tangled up, because you can't keep track and... erase yourself, or explode, or something.
 

cak85

Minstrel
I really like your idea because of the natural conflict built into it.

Here are some ideas/questions I have:

Question 1: How many warpers are in your world? If there are not that many warpers than I'd imagine that the warpers would be a very valuable "resource" for the ruling class or leaders etc who may want to manipulate or extort them. Like "hey build me a really cool defensible castle and I'll let you see your family again."

Or if there are a LOT of warpers, than I'd imagine the world to be very chaotic as all the warpers are constantly shifting and changing the world around them. Like - "Hey, I'd really like to create a huge mountain here." And another warper could be like, "I hate mountains. I am going to create a massive river to cut through your mountain and weaken it."

This could be a cool way of having warpers trying to one up each other.

Question 2: In the same vein as question 1. What happens if another warper gets inside the 500 foot radius of the first warper? Would the new warper be able to change the previous warper's creation? Would the two warpers vie for power/control? This could be a pretty interesting source of conflict. As I could imagine you have bad warpers who want to dominate and destroy the land then you have good warpers who want to heal.

Then you could play with the idea of having a good warper who ends up doing bad in the hope of doing good. And a bad warper who really does good in the name of doing bad.

I'd say just keeping exploring and see where it takes you! This is a really cool idea, the more I think about it.
 
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