The official scale of class activity/passivity has been posted at long last! I know this blog has been inactive for months at this point, and years before that, but I wanted to give my thoughts on these developments!
Let's start with the differences between this new scale and the one I'd been using since the start of my blog: there's only the one! Turns out, Maid is a passive class, while Sylph is an active one! Other than that, I was almost entirely correct, woo-hoo! That zero at the center there is unoccupied, so if this blog ever makes a comeback, I'll continue to operate with the Waste/Arch dichotomy I'd been using beforehand.
Now, then: how will this alter crosspects, going forward? Obviously, the interstitial classes will need a bit of a tune-up to reflect these changes. So below, I shall outline the (relevant) parts of the new scale:
+2: Mage, the Student
+1.5: Sage, the Physician
+1: Sylph, the Healer
+0.5: Fuel, the Tumor
0: Waste, the Squanderer
∞: Arch, the Superior
-0.5: Serf, the Beholden
-1: Maid, the Servant
-1.5: Coach, the Mentor
-2: Seer, the Teacher
So, what do these mean, exactly? I think they all bear some explanation, so I will do so here:
The Mage is the class of understanding. Yours is the duty to learn, the charge to gain an intimate familiarity with your aspect. It contrasts with the Seer, who plays more the role of the mentor, helping others gain a better understanding of themselves and their role using their aspect.
The Sage (formerly passive, now active) is the class of the doctor, the apothecary, the physick. Your duty is to gain a more thorough understanding of your aspect, as it manifests in yourself and others, and to use that understanding to repair what is broken; be it the bonds of Blood, the paradoxes of Space, or the tumult of Rage. It is contrasted by the Coach (a passive replacement for the Djinn), whose role it is to cultivate the latent potential in others with/through/regarding their aspect. A Coach is a Page's best friend.
The Sylph is a more direct healer than the Sage, but at the cost of understanding less of their aspect than the Sage. A Sylph of Time might heal you by turning back the clock to before you were injured; a Sage might do so by looking forward in time to when a cure for your ailment is discovered. The Sylph stands in contrast to the Maid, one who serves their aspect/serves through their aspect.
Fuel and Serf (formerly Buff) take on a more negative connotation in light of this new system, which I wanted to do because they lie adjacent to the Waste.
The Fuel's original definition was "one who creates an excess of their aspect," and this still holds now. Now, however, you are something akin to a tumor; a byproduct of a system working too efficiently and without restraint. It's up to you whether you wind up malignant (actively harmful to others and the session as a whole) or benign (harmless, at best).
The Serf, meanwhile, has changed a great deal now that it is positioned between the Waste and the Maid. The Serf is now beholden to/through their aspect. No longer enhancing others, they have lost a great deal of personal agency and are now naught but helpless servants to another. Whether you are helpful or harmful is not up to you, but perhaps some solace can be taken in the fact that whatever happens, it wasn't your fault.
-Mod Psycho
