“Un pour tous, tous pour un!”

“One for all, and all for one!”

Les Trois Mousquetaires (Alexandre Dumas)

The Ideal of Affiliation consists of the aspects of Antagonism and Reconciliation. It deals with the relationships between characters in all their forms. Such Muses delight in bitter rivalries and childhood friendships, kindly mediators and mischievous troublemakers. They favour narratives of trusts betrayed and friendships forged.

Muses of Affiliation's power comes from their ability to change the strength and nature of relationships between characters. They can turn competition into collaboration, rivalry into friendship, and love into hate.

In Vignettes and the Dreamscape, these powers can be manifested through applications of the Muses' Skills.

The Strife Skill governs uses of powers to attack others. With Affiliation, a Muse could turn allies against one another, or inspire coordination amongst their enemy's enemies.

Some examples of applications at different power levels are:

• Weak: A Muse might stoke antagonism to turn disagreement into an argument, or an argument into a fight.
• Moderate: A Muse might project an aura of protectiveness, encouraging bystanders to come to their defence.
• Strong: A Muse might drive two friends to enemies.
• Exceptional: A Muse might tear families apart, turning love into murderous hate and vice versa - rallying ancient enemies together against a common foe.

The Subvert Skill governs stealth, duplicity, and forgery. With Affiliation, a Muse could divide themselves others, becoming unnoticeable or conversely distract others by strengthening their connections to extremes.

Some examples of applications at different power levels are:

• Weak: A Muse might draw the attention of another by strengthening their connection to others, or be mistaken for just another face in the crowd.
• Moderate: A Muse might become a faceless crowd of nobodies along with their allies.
• Strong: A Muse might borrow the connections of another, taking on their relationships for a time.
• Exceptional: A Muse might divide themselves totally from others, making it impossible for others to care about them, or divide them from others, becoming the only person in the world to them and capturing them totally.

The Seek Skill governs uses of powers to gather information. Muses of Affiliation typically manifest this power by becoming confidants of secret keepers, or bringing together those who each have a part of the puzzle.

Some examples of applications at different power levels are:

• Weak: A Muse might quickly extract information from individuals through causal conversation.
• Moderate: A Muse might completely understand two people's relationship after observing them together.
• Strong: A Muse might completely read the relationships between others with a glance.
• Exceptional: A Muse might assemble legions of scholars to piece together the unknown.

The Sculpt Skill governs uses of powers to modify objects. Muses of Affiliation focus on relationships between individuals, and so favour this Skill less. However, they able to enhance the relationships between people and objects, stirring affection or disdain for items.

Some examples of applications at different power levels are:

• Weak: A Muse might change a person's feelings about an item, enhancing their fond memories of it - or their negative ones.
• Moderate: A Muse might easily trade trash for treasure, making an item appear much more or less important than it truly is to anyone looking.
• Strong: A Muse might completelyy hide items from sight by breaking their connection to others.
• Exceptional: A Muse might turn detritus into sacred relics, creating a McGuffin. Even those who did not know of it might find themselves aware of, and desirous of, the target of such an effect.