Some things are just too great or unusual for normal folks (even sages) to really comprehend – these are the Powers. Great powers seem to have little time for normal folks – or at least not in ways that are obvious to us. They don’t, normally, deal with normal folks (even clerics) directly, but many have some sort of interest in us.

But there are lesser powers, almost things that we have created, based on us and our lives. They don’t grant spells to priests, but they do interact with us in other ways.

Examples include the gargantuan chunk of elemental earth that makes up the bulk of our world, along with the sky full of elemental air and the seas full of elemental water and even the elemental Magma at the centre of the world. Then there is the Sun and the moon(s) - that are also composed of large amounts of sentient matter. All of them are sentient, but they are huge, introspective, and (possibly) think more slowly. What does it matter to the Earth if one person digs into her skin with a pickaxe? It is less that a bug bite. Much less. Even a huge mine isn’t really significant on that scale, but it might be the equivalent of a gnat bite – recognizable, but little more than an irritation. The great powers know we are here, we just don’t really fit into their consciousness timescales or world view.

The description (above) fits a world suitable for life ‘as we know it’ – but ‘our’ Prime Material Bubble can include other planets and other moons. There could be a gas giant planet, made up primarily of elemental air and water – with whatever sort of like that engenders. How about a planet composed of water and air? A counter-weight planet? All could exist within a Prime Material Bubble, and may have moons of different elemental composition. And all of them, as Powers, only vaguely concerned about their own populations – with no interest in us at all.

That doesn’t mean to say that we don’t interact with the great powers, or even that interacting with them looks any different to interacting with the gods. In the main game setting there is ‘The Green’ which respects and protects all aspects of nature - perhaps the best known physical manifestation of the world’s great powers. There are nature spirits – you might come across the Spirit of Mount Midoriyama, or Goldberry, the River Daughter – The sages all agree they exist, but there are huge arguments about their origins. Some sages argue that Dryad, Nixies, Nerids, Sylphs, and the like, are elemental nature spirits, other point to elemental servants such as the East Wind, and many sages mention high level druids who have ‘become one’ with the land. And there are gods, who follow that same set of philosophies. Hero-Gods who (perhaps) spent their mortal existence following ‘The Green’ and even some True Gods as well. The great powers are not defenceless and not without friends.

The three obvious ones are Hope, Despair and Luck – they affect just about every sentient being, and just about every sentient being knows that. While they affect us, there is nothing we can do to affect them. It doesn’t matter how many times you pray that the ball will fall into a red slot – it is still random and still down to luck alone. Some sages thing that Luck, Hope and Despair are connected, others argue that they are separate, but linked. Who really knows? Other candidates for lesser powers are the concepts of Good, Evil, Law and Order, although most sages ague those are philosophies, a few argue that they might have started as philosophies, but they have grown … But that only really matters to sages and philosophers, and they love arguing about this sort of thing. For the rest of us, the fine detail isn’t important.

Ironically, Lesser powers and philosophies might span across different Prime Material Bubbles - and thus be more powerful (in the greater scheme of things) that Great Powers.

The lesser powers have very few direct agents as they rarely interact with us at all. However, the Phoenix is often seen as a symbol of hope, while the Black Dog is a symbol of despair – but few others. That said, Arth was raised to become a minor deity by The Phoenix, who represents hope to his followers.