Actualization
Actualization
The Actualization skill represents your characters' ability to manifest alternate realities. Certain individuals are more naturally gifted at actualization, and, in general, actualization comes more naturally to children than adults.
As Actualization is necessary to manifest a Diver, NIAN typically selects individuals with some talent at Actualization to become Mindwalkers.
The ideas behind Actualization are similar to the ideas for Declaring a Story Detail. However, Actualization is more meant for things a character can believe in the present, and things that a character can change in the mental world. As with declaring a detail, Actualization has lasting consequences - once a character believes something, they continue believing it, even outside of the current scenario.
A major difference between declaring a story detail and using Actualization is that Declaring details requires the expenditure of a Fate Point, while Actualizing something requires a roll. Because of this, attempts to Actualize something can have various rates of success.
Example: The boulder that is blocking our path is made of cheese
+3 Good or Better -- The boulder takes on a yellow tint and starts to slightly soften. As you walk past, you take a chunk and taste it - it is delicious.+2 Fair -- The boulder takes on a yellow hue. You press into it. It has some give. You taste some. Hm. A bit bland, but all in all, not bad.
+1 Average -- The boulder seems to change a little. You try to cut through it with your sword. It slides through with great effort. If this is cheese, it's very hard and very stale.
+0 Mediocre -- The boulder seems to change a little. You try to cut through it with your sword, but quickly hit hard rock. It looks like this is a rock with a cheesy outer layer
-1 Poor or worse -- You close your eyes and imagine the boulder as a block of cheese, but nothing seems to happen.
Of course, difficulty will also depend on the Logic of your Palace ruler - trying to turn a rock into cheese is going to be much easier in the mind of a cheesemonger than in the mind of a geologist. Difficulty will also depend on your own experiences - if you're a cheesemonger and have seen cheese blocks that look exactly like boulders, this is going to be easier for you. (You would invoke your High Concept, in this case.)
Overcome: Actualization allows you to overcome any obstacle that requires a belief in an alternate reality, or a reality that exists outside of the assumed rules.
Eg1: "Scissors cuts paper, but gun shoots scissors".
Think about it as if you are playing a game with a five-year-old. If they are cornered, what ways would they use to get out?
Create an Advantage: When you're creating an advantage with Actualization, you're manifesting something or changing the nature of something so that it becomes useful to you.
Attack: Actualization is not often used in conflict, but here is one possibility: Against a foe who is afraid of snakes, a character could actualize "From out of the tree trunk crawls a giant snake, who was awoken by the sound of our battle." If they were successful, the foe might take mental stress.
Defend: Actualization is not often used to defend - the most common way to defend against Actualization is via Logic. Actualization can be used to contest other Actualizations in the case that two Divers create paradoxes, (A "sharpest spear" vs "ultimate shield" scenario - in this case, the Diver with the higher Actualization would win.)
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