The Stats: An Essay by Elisa, a Devil-in-Training

Dexterity: the physics-breaker and the bane of scientists everywhere. A force that allows enables to feats like walking on dust, running perpendicular and upside to a flat horizontal surface, treating a silk string like a thick metal pole. While useful for scientists, the impacts it has on their experiments cannot be understated and working around that is the bane of every scientist. It is an energy that prevents speed and strength from harming yourself, and it is the driving force for all physical classes. Oftentimes, berserker classes will decrease dexterity at cost to the body in return for an increase in strength and high regeneration. Classes like assassins go incredibly deep into this stat and ninjas somehow channel Dexterity to do what every other stat does. The way it is used varies heavily, from completely unnatural contortion to simply being able to dodge with incredible accuracy. The truth of Dexterity: ease concepts into the world.

Perception: The stat of the senses; it works on all senses except pain (unless there is a skill involved, like Masochism or Pleasurable Pain), though simply the presence of a skill depending on a certain sense will lead to further focus on that sense than is noted in the description. For the absolute idiots, a dump stat. Required to allow your brain to keep up with literally all stats. You need to be able to observe things in more complexity and faster in everything from potion making to magic, hand-to-hand combat to writing. Low-level people just cannot afford to put stat points in it though. It makes life more vivid and enjoyable, and as a result, some people are addicted to leveling and putting stat points in Perception. One of the more neutral stats in terms of reputation. The truth of Perception: Observe the world as it is.

Charisma: the social stat, it improves social skills and appearances. It also simultaneously has the best and worst reputation of all of the stats. It does not have the cool factor of the other stats but investing in it has brought happiness to many individuals completely lacking in social sense. It is highly lauded for “fixing” autism. While the argument on how this type of thing is described in media has its own issues underlying it, it is also a great stat for Magical Girls, which enables them to be so inspiring and even subtly decrease the rate of rift formation around them. This is because it can have a passive positive effect on other people’s emotions (though Charisma-based skills are quite capable of using for intimidation, fear magic, and more). The main reason why so many hate it as well is because it is the bread and butter of politicians. Not to mention, in combination with Will, it is the stat for mind manipulation classes (not mind control classes, which are quite different). Subtly improves all stats, and is certainly worth investing in if you can, but the stat-to-power ratio is not enough to replace other stats. The truth of Charisma: Grow into your conceptual best self.

Will: Your will acts upon the world. It is the stat used for magic. It is required for bending the Essence (and others) to your will. It and Charisma are the only stats that have a direct impact, and are impacted by, your personality (though Charisma has much less of an impact per point). You are literally forcing the world to be how you want it to according to your emotions, so narcissism and pride are expected, as well as whatever emotion or emotions you use to fuel your magic. Some high-level Mages can be freak-aaay when using their power, though Charisma tends to make it just seem cool or pretty. In spite of it being the main stat of mind control classes, it has the best reputation due to the public’s obsession with Magic. The truth of Will: bend the world to your concepts.

Speed: Makes your body move faster. One of the most basic stats in comparison to others, it still is rather beloved. For magic that requires physical movement, such as hand gestures or dance magic, it, as well as Dexterity, is a vital stat in addition to Will. Flying can be done without Speed using complicated applications of spells, but getting flying as a Skill requires high Speed, even if you have magic. Not to mention the most obvious application. People like Quicksilver for a reason. However, without Dexterity to manage it and Vitality to survive accidents, you are guaranteed to turn yourself into a paste. At high speeds, a clothesline will decapitate you if you cannot see, avoid, or just blunder through because of Vitality. The Speed stat does not affect muscle size. The truth of Speed: coexist and grow with time with life.

Strength: Increases the amount of force one can generate with their muscles, though Skills, Speed, and Dexterity are required to actually apply said force. Sometimes derided as the stat of muscleheads, it regardless is devastating in its simplicity. Clever applications of strength can terrify just as well as it did before the system. Skills are what really gives Strength the power it has though. A Magical Girl focused on Strength can generate entire walls of force from simple swings of the sword and create avatars for themselves that ensure they can leverage force to tear mountains asunder. This ensures that mages cannot outpace them. The Strength stat does not affect muscle size. It does also work on your base stats and on your skills, which is why constant exercise under ever-more extreme conditions is required. It can certainly be overcome with enough stats, but getting to that level without the exercise is extremely difficult. The truth of Strength: the world bends before your life.

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Vitality: the health stat. The ways in which it affects everyone are ridiculously varied. Similarly to Dexterity, it benefits all stats, though sometimes it negatively affects Charisma due to its changes. It increases toughness, nullification of force, how deadly wounds are, the level of regeneration, and/or just last longer with damage. It can also decrease the effect that poisons, diseases, lack of air and oxygen, magic with the intent to harm, and other varied extreme environmental conditions have on the body as well. The ratios and proportions of how much it changes each is so varied that it can be used in identification of individuals. Increasing it can change the pallor, color, and even texture of one’s body, which is why sometimes it has a negative effect on charisma. Its interaction with traits and skills can lead to wholesale changes in body structure, from increase in muscle mass and in density of bones to turning eyes into orbs of fire and creating uninterpretable symbols on your skin. The general outlook on Vitality is to just view it as health points and analyze the changes as they come, because predicting them is hopeless unless you have an extremely strong trait, which will affect you in a predictable manner. The truth of Vitality: give yourself life.

Traits: Traits, in general, apply to stats or skill split into three types: unique, color, and hereditary. Often work upon stats in some way, shape, or form.

-Color trait: In Magical Guardians (colloquially called Magical Girls in the human dimension), all traits are magnified, and they each get assigned one of the color traits: Green, Pink, Red, Blue, Yellow, Dark. The colors typically come from a personality trait (with the exception of Yellow and Dark) that gives them their Magical Girl name. Particularly powerful color-adjacent perks (more common in Pink and Dark) often appear in Magical Girls as well. Magical Girls are believed to be the only ones with color traits, though there is strong debate as to whether some Ninjas have color traits.

-Hereditary: A trait that is passed down through the repulsive act of reproduction, these traits are incredibly varied. They typically result from unique traits that have a recognizably permanent effect on the body. Ninjas have the highest percentage of hereditary traits, and the traits tend to considerably more powerful as well. Examples include the Verdant Green Blood, a poisonous blood trait capable of growing in toxicity with use, the Mirrored Eyes, a trait in the "friendly" hidden "village" Kage no ōi, capable allowing even a mere child possessing the trait to use any skill they have seen,.

-Unique: A trait ingrained in you due to your own efforts of the course of your life or the environment. These traits are similar to perks, but perks are rewards for relatively short-term rewards while unique traits are from something you have devoted your life too. For example, I will earn the trait Devil, due to devoting my life to obtaining souls with contracts - from research to apprenticeship to contract combat - and I will obtain the perk Devilish Soul for the achievement of obtaining a soul prior to even having the class Devil.

An excerpt from “An Analysis of a Vengeful Spirit’s Sight - Abstract"

Nanomolecular phantasmal threads weave through the curled-up superimposed dimensions that vital essentia permeates. The threads oscillate with furor that shift each peak of the waves into the emotional realms of Essence. The dampening effect of the coiled quintessence of the Homo sapiens on amplitude is used with incredible alacrity to pinpoint via triangulation and mild strangulation of the quintessence, which is believed to also lead to the typical sensation of proximity to a hysterical phantasm. Spite from Homo sapiens tends to have an effect akin to gravitational warping on the threads, causing hysterical phantasms to fumble due to decreased vision, precipitating peculiar effects that elicit a sense of negative fortune surrounding the spiteful Homo sapiens in this experiment (as a sidenote, this was done with full consent of the parents, the sponsors of this experiment: Electronics, Inc., and the child. No coercion was involved). The vision of apoplectic phantasms is capable of traveling through metal extending into the emotional realms, and increasing the amplitude of the coiled underdeveloped quintessence, creating a juxtaposition of soul that excludes the skill Manipulate Magic.

Mutterings on the Stars

We wink on ourselves, an uncountable number of glistening, twinkling eyes hungering for sight beyond the lightless blood under which they are submerged.

We turn around on ourselves, moving empty flesh; distorting billions of sights above eyelids.

We avoid the mockeries on ourselves; we are The Glistening With Tears And Starving For Adulation.

We feed on ourselves, a twinkle of amusement in our eyes; our saccharine world and you go squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy, squidgy...

We see the monotone fueled on ourselves and give to the nonexistent through the nonexistent blood.

We place the stage on ourselves; coughing, mindless actors crawling miserably over our beautiful bodies.

We proffer a hand to ourselves for we care not to do so to you.

We hum a song on ourselves, a reverie of dying and hunger, for we are made for flying and crying, we are falling and older, then lying and younger.