Tyche's Blessing or Tyche's Curse

In a world where luck appears to be random, it is possible for a person to be born with a magical predisposition to either good or bad luck. For most, this is relatively harmless and, while that person may be recognised as lucky or unlucky, the magical root can go completely unnoticed. However, rarely, the condition can be extreme enough to warrant intervention.   Possible forms of intervention for extreme bad luck can include the carrying of charms or amulets, and long-term close contact with someone predisposed to good luck. The latter can be tricky to navigate personally as the contrast can be psychologically challenging for the unlucky person. However, good luck wears down bad luck over time, given enough exposure.   There are risks associated with two people with opposing luck in close contact. The scenario is rare, but in instances where extreme good luck kicks in while the two parties are together, there can be a delayed backlash of extreme bad luck later after the two have parted. To take an example, if the person with good luck survives a potentially fatal accident or incident purely through extreme luck, something as devastating as the former is miraculous could fall upon the unlucky person, which may just be the beginning of an unusually unlucky streak. The streak can be broken by intervention from lucky or even luck-neutral parties, but rarely by the unlucky person alone.

Causes

Nobody knows what exactly causes someone to be predisposed to either good or bad luck, much less where exactly ordinary random chance ends and magical cause begins.   Until very recently the occurrance was thought to be random throughout the population. However a recent discovery put the condition(s) (considered two sides of one coin) in a new light. Two half-brothers, sons of the same father, were discovered to each have a different predisposition: the older to extreme good luck, the younger to extreme bad luck. This implies not only that there is likely to be a genetic component, but that the two variations are not distinct from each other in that respect. More* study is required.   *Any study at all, in fact, would be welcomed by those afflicted with bad luck.

Symptoms

Symptoms of either variation are easy to mistake for the randomness of life. However if one finds oneself either virtually always winning, or virtually always losing, games, challenges or bets, not just in a period of time but throughout one's whole life, it's certainly suggestive. With bad luck, a sign that is particularly suggestive is that when in the rare instance, a win is achieved--which is possible--more often than not it is in some way a phyrric victory.   Symptoms of predisposition to extreme good luck are particularly prevalent in exams and tests if the student in question has not studied, since they're likely to still get reasonably high marks. This can happen either because they're guessing mostly correctly, or because the questions that come up happen to be the ones they know best. Both of these are statistically extremely unlikely and only explainable by luck rooted in magical origins.

Prevention

Someone magically predisposed to bad luck should never, ever gamble. Effort must be made to overcome obstacles that life throws in the way.

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