The Eye of the World
Epic fantasy opener — farm kids pulled into a war against a returning Dark One.
Mechanisms
Drawing more Power than you can channel
Power without capacity is injury — the limiter is the body, not the source.
Quickly he had drawn more of the One Power than he could channel unaided; his skin felt as if it were aflame.
Why it matters
Power without capacity is injury — the limiter is the body, not the source.
Use when: Use when a system lets users pull more capability than their controls can hold.
Two names for one road, and that is that
Local convention is absolute inside the village — humor from outside does not rewrite the map.
Outsiders sometimes found it funny that the road had one name to the north and another to the south, but that was the way it had always been, as far as anyone in Emond's Field knew, and that was that.
Why it matters
Local convention is absolute inside the village — humor from outside does not rewrite the map.
Use when: Use when a team insists on one global label for a thing that already has two living names.
Concepts
No beginnings or endings on the Wheel
The cosmology refuses origin myths and finale myths — every "start" is mid-cycle.
There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
Why it matters
The cosmology refuses origin myths and finale myths — every "start" is mid-cycle.
Use when: Use when a story or org chart pretends it has a clean Year Zero.
Questions
Winter until the Age ends
Catastrophe gets narrated as cosmology when weather (or stress) will not break.
Maybe it's just going to go on being winter until the Wheel turns and the Age ends.
Why it matters
Catastrophe gets narrated as cosmology when weather (or stress) will not break.
Use when: Use when people escalate a stuck season into end-of-world talk.
Passages
Wolves and bears are fine; do not stop the errand
Local threat hierarchy: known dangers are priced in; blocking the mission is not.
Wolves and bears were all very well, his manner said, things that any man who kept sheep must be aware of, but they had best not try to stop Tam al'Thor getting to Emond's Field.
Why it matters
Local threat hierarchy: known dangers are priced in; blocking the mission is not.
Use when: Use when someone treats routine risk as a reason to abort the actual objective.