Metapol

Metapoliticians, or more commonly, metapols, are those who can read the conflueverant within any moving water by placing a pole within it and meditating upon how the pole moves or pulls.

Metapolitics

Metapolitics is the study of the political, social, esoteric, narrative, and other metaphysical currents that affect the world and peoples' lives by using actual currents in water to tap into them and sense them. This is done through a form of meditative, repetitive action and priming with aetherial powers.

In ancient times, early mariners and sailors found that when they used long poles to guide their boats, they could sense the flow of the waters beneath. On long journeys, they would focus intently on these currents, and eventually, they realized they could learn from them. They heard voices, saw visions, smelled aromas, tasted flavors, and felt the wash. Eventually, they started to intentionally study and analyze what was coming through the currents, and a system of analyzing them developed.

Moving Water

All water has conflueverant in it. When the water moves, the conflueverant is empowered, intensified, and connected to the world around it. Thus, moving water has more potent aether in it, and therefore, it is possible to connect to the aether in it simply by touching it, as it will naturally connect to the currents that are part of you.

Feet

A person's feet are most connected to the metaphysical currents in their life, thus they make the best connection to the conflueverant in moving water. Bare feet are best. If a being is not primarily propelled by their feet, the part of their body responsible for that works best. For example, avians may have feet (talons), but wings are their primary means of movement, thus their wings should be in the water instead. Merfolk's fins, serpentines' tails, and so on work best.

Poles

The early metapols learned that though their feet could help them connect, them could not sense the currents or analyze them without some tool. The poles they used to propel their boats served this purpose. The push and pull on the poles told them much, and drew up the conflueverant into their sense. Poles made of wood that does not rot quickly is best, lacquered or treated woods, woods coated in special metals (especially wyren gold), or poles made of special forms of stone work best.

Tridents

Underwater, because merfolk, undines, and other underwater beings do not need poles to propel them through water, they leanred metapolitics through their use of other objects. Over the Ages, this evolved into their using tridents, which move through the water with less resistance, to connect to the currents. This also allowed them to take control of the conflueverant and command the waters, willing it through the tines of the tridents.

Wyren Gold

Wyren gold is a magical form of gold found underwater that is not affected by the heavy salinity and has less resistance to the currents and pressures of the deep sea. It more readily connects to conflueverant as it has some in it already. It is precious to metapols.

Currents

Metapolitics is a form of sympathetic magic. The currents of water symbolize the currents in one's life. From the broad scale of class struggle or the winds of fortune to the minuscule level of personal relationships and office politics, the currents can represent anything. A skilled metapol knows how to read these to know what is going on in the rest of the world, likely upcoming events, and the motivations and stories of those connected to them.

Information Gathering

While studying the currents, a metapol senses things happening elsewhere, similar to clairvoyance. Though they do not get indepth information directly, the waves of sensations and experiences that hit them, a thousand upon a thousand impressions, form a mosaic of information that they learn to read over time. The information comes in the form of the five senses (or more, if the being has more, such as empathy or psionics):

• Sight: visions last less than a second, giving brief glimpses of what is going on in the world. Usually these go by so fast they do not consciously process them.
• Hearing: sounds can sometimes last long enough to form whole syllables or even short words, but they rarely have any obvious meaning.
• Smell: aromas reach the nose and fade quickly, but due to the nature of odors, they may linger longer than others. Usually they are too common to have much direct value.
• Taste: flavors fill the mouth and vanish, though the intensity of them can vary such that strong flavors are more clearly sensed. They do not on their own amount to much, however.
• Touch: sensations are felt in the fingers, as if lightly brushed. They generally are not valuable as stand alone data.

Analysis

Metapols take in the information gained from the senses during their connection to the currents, and they interpret it. A skilled metapol will turn the impressions they got into distinct, even specific information sometimes. This skill is called interpretation.

Water Types

The kind of water and where it is has an imapct on the effectiveness of the metapolitical connections and on the nature of them.

Saltwater vs. Freshwater

Saltwater requires less intense movement to give a strong read, but freshwater, if running fast, comes through clearer.

Vapor vs. Liquid

Liquid water works absolutely best, but vapor, if it is moving, can sometimes work. Clouds, fogs, mists, and so on can be tapped into, but they are very hard to read.

Oceans and Seas

Oceans and seas are the most potent sources. The constant movement within them generates massive amounts of conflueverant and excites it intensely. They are good for general information on just about anything.

Rivers, Streams, and Creeks

Fast moving rivers are the next best to oceans and seas. The deeper one can send their pole into the river, the better. Streams, creeks, and other smaller water flows are therefore less potent. Rivers are best sources for information on places along their banks.

Bayous and Wetlands

Bayous and wetlands of any kind are very slow moving and generally do not generate as much excitement in the conflueverant. Furthermore, interplay with other forms of aether causes them to be less clear. However, the waters of wetlands are richly connected to the world itself, and one can learn much about the elemental currents of the world and of all life through them.

Lakes, Ponds, and Pools

The stiller the body, the less potent it is. Larger lakes often have significant systems of currents and can be nearly as good as a strong river. Ponds and pools tend to be very weak. These weak waters can be used, however, to generate currents artificially by having several people get in and move the water about. In doing so, they can be used to read the connections between those people.

Tides

The tides, pulled by the moons, have an intensity of movement that is poetic and graceful, and therefore they produce powerful conflueverant. Though the tides push and pull the waters all over the world and create many currents, the splash and spray of waves on beaches is where they are most pronounced. A major wave or a neap tide can give some of the strongest reads, but they do not last as long. Tides give very strong reads on world events.

Geysers

A very brief source of current, geysers are dangerous for obvious reasons. They also often involve distortion from other aethers. But they can be used particularly to find out information about upcoming disasters.

Waterfalls

The constant torrents of a waterfall create a lot of excited conflueverant, but it moves on very quickly. Therefore, it's much more rapidfire in its delivery of information, which can be very confusing. However, it can be used to get a lot of information quickly, if one is skilled enough to sort through it.

Maelstroms

Maelstroms and whirlpools are extremely powerful currents that generate the best conflueverant in the world, especially in the oceans. They are also very dangerous, and getting into one to sense anything is almost impossible, even for the most powerful undines.

Floodwaters

Floodwaters quickly become corrupted by misfortune or other dangerous energies that can make them unreliable. Using them in their most intense moments can bring dramatic blasts of information, but that comes with obvious dangers. When they have stilled, they are almost useless.

Rains

Rainstorms can, if the torrential downpour is strong enough, bring information from all over the world. However, the majority of rainstorms are too chaotic and confused to give good information. Only the very best can read them.

Subterranean Waters

Flows of water underground often get distorted by kazaddarean, but this can be used to make special connections to things that are less fluid if one knows what one is doing.

Sewers

Sewers are notoriously murky, aside from being disgusting to interact with. Toshers and some others who often dwell or have long contact with them learn how to read them, however, often combining with other energies such as gemtkhereg. Most cannot read them very well.

Islands

Waters near to islands, especially in archepelagos, often has ikehua lyua pele within it as well, making it useful for sensing tectonic flows, if need be.

Mud

Mudslides are extremely dangerous and almost impossible to read. One would have to be desperate or stupid to try it, but it is theoretically possible.

Blood

The flow of blood can be read by extremely skilled metapols, but it requires they put their poles into the flow (meaning creating a large wound). It will give extremely intimate information about the person whose blood it is.

Tubs

One may get a strong sense of one's own currents by using a tub full of water and making it move rapidly, but it has limited range.

Ice

Solid, unmoving ice is impossible to read, but glaciers do have some current in them. However, it is so slow that one must wait for years to get even a little bit of information. That information would be very profound, however.

Brown Aether

Polluted waters turn conflueverant into brown aether, which not only destroys any possibility of reading the currents, it could kill the metapol.

Aridity

A metapol in an arid environment, such as a desert or an airless moon, will not only be powerless, they will feel stunted, frustrated, and blinded.

Other Aethers

Other aetherial energies can influence or otherwise affect the currents:

• Ikehua lyua pele: the aether of islands can intensify the currents around them, and any use of that energy can help either clarify or distort the currents around them. They do however offer a chance of a metapol to sense lava flows, which is dangerous and stupid, but can give strange information.
• Parfum de marais: swamp aether helps make swamp waters legible, usually by intensifying the aromas sensed. It is, however, hard to make this work.
• Hvittodgg: any hvittdogg present will freeze currents solid and make them impenetrable.
• Bijalee: storm aether may help a metapol read clouds, mists, fogs, or rain, but it is turbulent and violent and cannot be trusted. It can have major backlash.
• Kiiric yihi: winds aether has its own form of currents, but these cannot be read by metapols. However, when combined with waters, it can sometimes help one read clouds, though this is very tricky and difficult.
• Lunar aether: the marriage between conflueverant and lunar aether is the most intimidate. If a metapol also knows how to use lunar aether, they can greatly improve their ability to sense currents, though not necessarily to interpet them. However, this can also cause conflueverant to be reflected away and thus cause major gaps in the information.
• Qeernariji: cosmic aether is a very abstract connection to conflueverant, as the astral dance does affect the currents of the world and the universe. However, only extremely powerful or specialized metapols could make it work.
• Sonic aether: sonic aether interacts with conflueverant in the same way that sound interacts with water. It can sometimes clarify, but it can also distort in significant ways. It does amplify any sounds read from the currents.

Other Energies

Non-aetherial energies do not mix well with conflueverant without significant work to make them interact well. However, if that work is done, these energies can prove very potent in combination:

• Blood energy/humors: much as reading the currents of blood has a very specific, intensely intimate reading, so too does combining conflueverant with these energies.
• Vile energy: vile energy can allow a metapol to read the currents of the movement of diseases.
• Gossamer light: gossamer light mixes with metapolitics in a very dangerous way. One who is primarily a gossamer light user may actually manipulate conflueverant and thus broader currents, but doing so is unpredictable, dangerous, and often deadly for the user.
• Celeste water: reading celestial currents is only possible if one is a good person, but it can give insights into holy matters.
• Poioumenon: perhaps the most useful combination, the flow of narrative mixed with the flow of aether can reveal incredible amounts of information.
• Kor, mana, fortune, misfortune, fate: other forms of poioumenonic energies have similar impact, though in their specific domains.
• Symbolism: the most static form of poioumenon helps with interpretation but does not add to the amount of information or nature of it.
• Flux and momentum: these paradoxical energies can help with clarity or increase the intensity of the currents.
• Vonzot or ethereal essence: systemic or connective energies can expand the kinds of information a source of water might give.
• Euphotonia, euphony, cacophony: these energies can either make things clearer or more distorted.
• Mana: mana can allow the above combinations to be possible.

Cultural Variants

• Washerwomen:
• other

Skills

Metapols' main skills are connecting to the currents and interpreting it. Other skills they find useful include swimming, politics, social connections, journalism, knowledge of history and current events, tactics and strategy, ickthyology, philosophy, psychology and sociology, and languages.

Stats

These are the modifiers to basic stats typical of any metapol:

PRO +1
ATH +2 Swimming +4
STR -1
AWA +6
WIL +1
STH +2
PRS +2