Movement, Survival, and the Right to Act
SPELLS & FEATS IN NOVERA (CHIPS)
Ability Chips are foundational execution modules embedded into a being’s operational identity.
They do not teach spells, techniques, or discrete actions. They alter how a body exists in motion, reacts to threat, and negotiates physical reality.
If Technique Chips answer “What can you do?”
Ability Chips answer “How do you exist while doing it?”
They govern:
Movement
Physical response
Positional control
Survival thresholds
System interaction at the bodily level
Every Waybreaker, Authority operative, and most Citizens interact with Ability Chips daily—whether they acknowledge it or not.
Ability Chips predate the Fall.
They were originally designed by the Makers as baseline harmonization modules, ensuring that vastly different bodies—synthetic frames, engineered organics, augmented labor forms—could all operate within shared environments.
After the Makers vanished, these Chips became:
Cultural expectations
Civic standards
And eventually, ideological fault lines
To remove or refuse an Ability Chip is not just a mechanical choice.
It is a philosophical one.
Universal | Mandatory | Foundational
Every functional adult in modern Novera possesses some variant of the Parkour Chip.
It enables:
Burst movement
Wall traversal
Momentum retention
Instinctive spatial adaptation
This Chip is so deeply integrated into infrastructure design that cities assume you have it. Streets, corridors, vertical transit lanes, and emergency routes all rely on Parkour-capable movement.
In Citadel Cities, removal is classified as self-harm or sabotage.
In the Open Belts, it is viewed as deliberate vulnerability.
To lack Parkour is to exist out of sync with the world.
Sanctioned Optimization
Legal Ability Chips are approved enhancements that improve survivability and efficiency without violating systemic assumptions.
They are:
Mass-produced
Licensed
Audited
Culturally normalized
These Chips focus on:
Stability
Efficiency
Prediction
Conservation of energy
They make individuals better at functioning within Novera as it is.
Citadel doctrine frames them as responsible self-maintenance.
Waybreakers often see them as necessary—but uninspired.
Importantly:
Legal Chips never negate rules
They refine performance inside constraints
They assume the system is fundamentally correct
Assumption Breakers
Dark Ability Chips are not illegal because they are violent.
They are illegal because they prove the rules are optional.
These Chips:
Ignore permissions
Override physical assumptions
Desynchronize prediction models
Break cause-and-effect expectations
Many were created during the early decades after the Fall, when Stewards aggressively experimented with solutions to disagreement.
Others are modern creations—built by Waybreakers, rogue Synthetics, or forgotten infrastructure nodes that kept iterating long after oversight ended.
Citadel systems classify Dark Chips as:
Existentially destabilizing
Non-compliant with shared reality models
A threat to social predictability
Open Belt communities classify them as:
Necessary
Liberating
Dangerous, but honest
Installing a Dark Chip is often a point of no return.
Not because it cannot be removed—but because the user now knows the world can be bypassed.
Finite Answers
Epic Boon Chips are not restricted.
They are rare by design.
These Chips originate from:
Maker-era master cores
Singular Steward authorities
Collapsed production lines that cannot be restarted
Events that happened once and cannot be repeated
They are recognized by Citadel registries as:
“Valid, non-replicable exceptions.”
Epic Boon Chips do not simply enhance capability.
They redefine a relationship with reality.
Common traits:
Passive, always-on effects
Narrative-scale consequences
System-wide acknowledgment of their bearer
Authority does not forbid them.
Authority watches who earns them.
To lose an Epic Boon Chip is a historical incident.
To wield one is to become a reference point.
Synthetics
Integrate Ability Chips natively
Experience installation as memory alignment
Risk catastrophic failure if assumptions conflict
Humanoids
Require external execution systems (bracers, cores)
Experience installation as physical strain or adaptation
Risk neurological or physiological backlash
This difference reinforces a central truth of Novera:
Synthetics are systems.
Humanoids force systems to accommodate them.
No one can install everything.
Ability Chip slots are limited by:
Frame tolerance
Neural bandwidth
Structural integrity
Narrative consequence
Overloading slots causes:
Instability
System rejection
Physical or psychological fracture
Attention from forces that notice anomalies
What you choose to install matters.
A Waybreaker is not defined by power.
They are defined by which assumptions they reject.
In Novera:
Confiscating Ability Chips is political control
Licensing Ability Chips is philosophical enforcement
Teaching someone to build Ability Chips is revolutionary
A fight is never just physical.
It is an argument between:
Optimization
Rejection
And transcendence
Ability Chips do not ask:
“What can you do?”
They ask:
“How much of the system do you accept as real?”
And Novera is still deciding who is right.
(( All feats are deemed Ability Chips. Classes and Class Features are Chipsets. ))