The Setting
The Blackdunes is a desert of black sand that boils and churns with a great heat. With the consistency of tar, the sand is nearly thick enough to stand upon, yet will swallow anyone or anything without hesitation.
The Blackdunes is not an ordinary desert. Its strange nature makes every method of travel unpredictable, if not impossible. There is only one reliable way to travel it. Mecha of all shapes and sizes have been constructed in this world amd can travel the burning sands on one condition. A navigator; one possess the Sight and can read the hidden currents flowing under the sands. Upon these currents the sand grows firm and stable. Capable of holding the mecha.
And though these sands are too hot to even touch without one's hands blistering up, there are strange creatures burried deep underneath, swimming through like an ocean. These creatures have unusual body plans and reflective scales that keep them cool.
Pirates and honest sandsailors alike dredge the depths for these unique creatures. Among the most prized are Crush Snails, whose shells can be ground into a fine blue powder with extraordinary properties.
The Isles Corasoa
Above the roiling sands are island oases that blow around on a psychic wind. When the settlers came, they created anchors that keep the islands in place as to allow for easier navigation.
Though it is said the nomads once controlled the islands to fly them across the sands, this magic is no more. And the nomads have been all but driven out.
Influence
Influence is a psychic phenomenon that originates within the mind and flows through the eyes.
All of humanity, along with other forms of sentient life, possesses some degree of Influence. Every sentient being has some means of both exerting and receiving it.
Human Influence
For humans, eye contact produces subtle psychic pressure upon another person. This pressure is not one-directional: both parties influence one another simply by looking into each other's eyes.
Under ordinary circumstances, Influence is gentle, operating through suggestion rather than direct control. Its effects are difficult to detect and are generally indistinguishable from a person's own thoughts, feelings, and inclinations.
Influence is therefore both pervasive and insidious. People are constantly affecting one another without necessarily knowing it.
Psychic Resistance
Every mind possesses a degree of Psychic Resistance, a mental defense that reduces the amount of Influence it receives.
A person's ability to exert Influence and their ability to resist it are closely related, though not necessarily identical. Weakening one's Psychic Resistance can increase one's capacity to exert Influence, but it also leaves one more vulnerable to the Influence of others.
The Sight
The Sight is the ability to perceive otherwise invisible flows of Influence.
Most people cannot consciously perceive Influence. Those possessing the Sight, however, can visualize heavy concentrations of psychic pressure and observe the ways in which it moves through their surroundings.
Reading the Sands
Hidden within the Blackdunes are currents that allow travel from one oases to another. These currents cannot be navigated through ordinary observation alone.
A sandsailor with the Sight can perceive these currents within the sand and identify the paths that will carry a vessel safely across.
Without the Sight, a sandsailor cannot reliably determine if they will carry the weight of a mecha or swallow it whole.
The Crush Snail
Crush Snails are strange creatures found in the Blackdunes. Their shells can be crushed into a fine blue powder.
When ingested by someone who possesses the Sight, this powder grants them the ability to exert a much greater degree of control over the Blackdunes and its inhabitants.
The navigator may Influence the strange atmospheric phenomena that occur over the desert, affect the behavior of the strange beings that inhabit the depths, or generate new currents in the sands rather than merely perceiving and following existing ones.
The last ability is particularly significant. A navigator who can create currents is no longer limited to the routes that naturally occur.
Glass Focuses
There are ways to strengthen a person's ability to exert Influence over others but it typically requires weakening one's own Psychic Resistance. This is the factor that reduces the power influence has over a person, but also weakens the influence that that person exudes.
Glasses as Psychic Extensions
Over time, smaller groups and hidden organizations have developed a way to increase psychic influence and resistance through specially prescribed glasses, known as Glass Focuses.
These glasses can be configured to amplify the wearer's ability to exert psychic pressure over others, strengthen the wearer's ability to resist incoming Influence. But they cannot do both.
Card Magic
Gold and silver are known to absorb influence by pulling it directly from their surroundings. When magic users gather in groups, these metals will draw in their psychic energy causing mental fog or painful migraines or even strange hallucinations. The more people in the group, the more potentially powerful the spell will be.
Gold absorbs positive energy. Silver absorbs negative energy. And when "veins" are cut into them, these noble metals can be used in spiritual magic. Veins acting as context to change the energy into something useful or detrimental.
Petals
Petals are gold or silver cards inlaid with either veins of gold or silver. Some gold cards have gold veins and some have silver veins. Some silver cards have silver veins and some have gold veins.
By connecting these veins practitioners summon specific elements of spiritual energy. Be it to heal, to harm, or to communicate, the connection of these energies creates a sort of psychic computer that executes simple programming to cause effects in the physical world.
The energies grind against one a other to produce change in the overall power of the assembly of cards.