Temporal Harmonics

Temporal Harmonics

Default Attribute: Wit

Lore

Elven magic is not performance. It is maintenance.

Over centuries of passive resonance with the Axioms, Elven physiology became entangled with the frequencies governing continuity, the harmonic layer that keeps things from changing, decaying, or becoming something else. They did not learn to cast spells; they learned to make the Axioms agree with them.

A practitioner of Temporal Harmonics does not force outcomes. They establish precedent. A contract sealed with a Temporal Harmonic is not a legal threat; it is a new physical law, narrow in scope and absolute in application. An Elven Arcology does not appear well-maintained because it is regularly cleaned; it appears well-maintained because the Temporal Harmonics woven into its foundations have defined "well-maintained" as the structure's natural state.

Modern non-Elven practitioners do exist, particularly among LGT-affiliated lawyers and archivists, but they describe learning Temporal Harmonics as learning to think slower on purpose. The Tradition resists urgency. A panicked Temporal roll rarely succeeds.

Mechanics Summary

Feature	Detail
Default Attribute	Wit
Action Type	Primary (most effects); Minor (passive readings)
Signature Feel	Slow, permanent, inexorable; effects require setup but are extremely difficult to reverse
Power Access	LGT Arbiter, Resonance Notary, Temporal Strategist (Professions); LGT-sponsored independent study
Signature Focus	The Linden-Green Signet

Temporal Harmonics rolls cannot be made at Advantage unless the character has spent at least one full minute of uninterrupted preparation before rolling. This is not a Friction restriction; it is a property of the Tradition itself. Temporal magic that is rushed loses its anchor to permanence. The Wild Die still applies normally.

Philosophies

Preservation

The magic of arresting change.

Preservation allows the practitioner to hold a subject, physical, chemical, or biological, in its current state. This is how Elven food never spoils, how their buildings never age, and how a Blood-Lease physically resists alteration. Preservation is not a shield; it is a declaration that a specific condition is now a baseline, and deviation from that baseline requires force.

Challenge Applications:

• Prevent organic material from decaying (Threshold 1–2, duration scales with successes)
• Preserve a wounded creature's condition exactly, neither improving nor worsening, until medical intervention (Threshold 2; useful to stabilize a dying ally without triggering AX.C.12 stabilization rolls)
• Lock a physical state against alteration: a door held shut, a structure held at its current integrity against seismic stress (Threshold 2–4 depending on force being resisted)
• Arrest the progression of a disease, poison, or Condition, not cure it, but freeze it (Threshold 3; the affliction resumes if Preservation is broken)
• Seal a small area of terrain, objects, or environment against change (Threshold 4; permanent until deliberately reversed)

Scaling: Each excess success above Threshold may extend duration by one step or expand the effect by one additional subject.

Backlash: The practitioner's own biology partially locks, Minor: one sensory input freezes for the scene (sight, hearing, etc., GM's choice); Moderate: the character cannot willingly move from their current position until end of scene; Severe: the character's age-related biology halts, they do not heal naturally until they receive a Difficult (3) Temporal Harmonics treatment.

Covenant

The magic of binding agreements.

A Covenant is a Temporal Harmonic woven into a promise, contract, or declared intent. The Axioms recognize the stated terms and apply pressure, not supernatural compulsion, but a persistent harmonic dissonance that makes violating the terms physically, mentally, and professionally costly. The LGT built its empire on Covenants.

A Covenant requires both parties to participate willingly in the sealing (or for one party to be unaware while the practitioner seals it unilaterally, which is considered a serious ethical and legal violation in most jurisdictions). Covenants are not mind control; they do not override agency. They make breaking a promise feel like trying to walk through a wall.

Challenge Applications:

• Seal a verbal agreement with minor harmonic weight, both parties feel mild discomfort when contemplating violation (Threshold 1; scene duration)
• Create a formal Juris-Axiomatic contract: violation causes escalating discomfort up to significant physical pain (Threshold 3; duration permanent until terms are met or Covenant is formally dissolved)
• Seal a Blood-Lease property agreement: standard LGT contract format, enforced at the Harmonic level (Threshold 3; requires the Linden-Green Signet Focus for legal standing)
• Compel truth from a subject willing to accept a Covenant of Honesty (Threshold 2; the subject cannot knowingly make a false statement for the scene)
• Dissolve an existing Covenant, requires equal or greater dice pool than the original sealing roll (Threshold equals original successes; contested if the original sealant resists)

Scaling: Excess successes strengthen the discomfort gradient (making violation more physically costly) or extend the Covenant's scope.

Backlash: The practitioner becomes Covenanted against their own intent, Minor: they cannot willingly take an action they intended this scene (GM selects); Moderate: they are Covenanted to the most recent thing they said aloud, and cannot contradict it for the rest of the scene without taking 1D damage; Severe: a random prior obligation (in-world) becomes Harmonically enforced against them.

Archive

The magic of reading what time has recorded.

Every object, space, and living being carries a harmonic residue of what has happened to it. Archive allows the practitioner to read that residue, to recover information that has been lost, hidden, destroyed, or simply forgotten. This is the Elven answer to the question of how a civilization can plan for centuries when records are lost, languages shift, and buildings are demolished and rebuilt.

Archive is passive perception, not active manipulation. It reads; it does not write. However, what it reads can have immediate consequences.

Challenge Applications:

• Sense the emotional and experiential history of an object held in hand (Threshold 1; impressions, not precise memories)
• Recover a document, inscription, or recording that has been destroyed, physically reconstruct the harmonic echo of the original (Threshold 2–3 depending on age and degree of destruction)
• Read the recent history of a location, events that occurred in the last week register clearly, events years old require higher Thresholds (Threshold 2 = recent; Threshold 4 = decades; Epic = centuries)
• Identify a Covenant, Blood-Lease, or other Temporal binding present on a subject or location (Threshold 2; reveals terms but not necessarily the sealing party)
• Recover a specific detail from a long-dead person's final conscious moments, if their remains are present (Threshold 4; this is considered deeply invasive and is regulated under the Linden-Green Accords)

Scaling: Excess successes sharpen the resolution of the reading, vague impressions become precise events, approximate dates become specific, emotional context becomes clear dialogue.

Backlash: Archive inverts, Minor: the practitioner receives a flood of irrelevant historical noise and has Disadvantage on all Notice checks for the scene; Moderate: they perceive the current scene as if it is a historical reading, they cannot reliably determine what is present-tense for 1D6 Turns; Severe: they lock into a specific historical moment and are Stunned (cannot act) until they pass a Wit + Resolve Save at Threshold 3.

Resonance-Ward

The magic of holding the line against change.

Resonance-Ward is defensive Temporal Harmonics. Where Preservation freezes a specific state, Resonance-Ward establishes an active resistance to unwanted alteration, a harmonic buffer that makes the protected subject harder to affect, damage, or transform.

This is how Elven Arcologies weather industrial pollution, how LGT vaults remain inviolate, and how senior Elven practitioners survive encounters with forces that would simply be lethal to shorter-lived lineages.

Challenge Applications:

• Grant a subject (self or other) +1 Defense against physical attacks and environmental hazards for the scene (Threshold 2; does not stack with armor, use whichever is higher)
• Make a subject Resistant to a specific damage type or Condition category for the scene, damage of that type is halved, rounding down (Threshold 3; must specify the type at time of casting)
• Create a harmonic perimeter: any entity that crosses the boundary and intends harm against those inside becomes Stressed immediately (Threshold 3; perimeter up to Near range radius)
• Grant a subject Advantage on all Saves against a specific threat type for the scene (Threshold 3)
• Permanently inscribe a passive Resonance-Ward into a structure, object, or document, granting the above benefits to anyone who possesses or occupies it (Threshold 4–5; this is the technology behind LGT-grade secure facilities)

Scaling: Excess successes extend duration or stack the Defense bonus (+1 per 2 excess successes, maximum +3 total from Resonance-Ward).

Backlash: The Ward inverts and traps, Minor: the practitioner's own Defense drops by 1 for the scene; Moderate: the practitioner is Warded against their own allies, they cannot willingly move within Close range of them until the Ward breaks (Wit Save vs Threshold 3 each Turn); Severe: the practitioner is encased in a total Preservation state, conscious but completely unable to act, perceive, or be affected by anything, until someone breaks the field with a Difficult (3) Harmonic roll.

The Linden-Green Signet (Temporal Focus)

A ring, seal, or pendant bearing the LGT crest, inscribed with a foundational Covenant in Old Elven. More than status symbol, the Signet is a harmonic tuning instrument that anchors Temporal rolls to the legal and social frameworks the Accords established.

Mechanical Effect: Grants +2D to Covenant and Resonance-Ward rolls. Additionally, any Covenant sealed with the Signet has automatic LGT legal standing, recognized under Juris-Axiomatic law in all signatory nations without requiring a separate legal process.

Availability: Issued exclusively by the LGT to Arbiters and Resonance Notaries in good standing. Black market copies exist but lack the harmonic signature required for the +2D bonus; they may still provide the legal-standing effect to an uninformed buyer, until the LGT audits the seal.

Friction Note: The Signet does not reduce Resonance Stress accumulation. LGT practitioners are trained to embed Temporal effects in prepared documents rather than casting in-scene, reducing the number of rolls required and keeping their field Clear.

Example Rolls

Party investigates an abandoned LGT facility. Seren, an Elven Arbiter with Wit 4D + Temporal Harmonics 3D (Archive Focus 2D), wants to read the history of the building.

Roll 1, Reading the room (Archive, Threshold 2):

Pool: Wit 4D + Temporal Harmonics 3D + Archive Focus 2D = 9D.

Status: Clear. Result: 4 successes.

Exceeds Threshold by 2, Seren recovers the events of the past week in sharp detail and may allocate the excess successes to extend the read back one additional month.

Status after roll: Stressed.

Roll 2, Locating a hidden Covenant on the vault door (Covenant read, Threshold 2):

Pool: Wit 4D + Temporal Harmonics 3D = 7D at Disadvantage (only 6s count).

Status: Stressed. Result: 2 successes (both sixes).

Meets Threshold, Seren identifies the Covenant's terms: no unauthorized entity may remove contents without triggering a Backlash on themselves. Cannot identify the sealing party without a harder Archive roll.

Seren chooses to Short Rest before attempting further Harmonics.