Grace is the Divine Essence which grants the race of Gods their extraordinary Powers. Grace confers powers of effective omnipotence, omniscience, and immortality. A god can accomplish virtually any effect they wish so long as they are able to generate enough Aura to do so. Grace can also be infused with elemental essence, further increasing its power. Devils call their essence Fury, which save for its demonic nature is functionally identical to Grace.
While gods tend to be born with Grace, in truth any being who is able to sufficiently develop their Aura Network will spontaneously generate Grace as a result, in effect becoming a god themselves. However, this method of apotheosis is extremely rare for mortals in the Midplane as it is extremely difficult to achieve in the lifetime of most mortals. By contrast in Hell, many powerful Devils managed to rise in station from their initial position as demons through these methods.
There are no known methods to steal grace from an unwilling god without killing them, though gods of greater power are able to suppress the grace of lesser gods (Rao would do this several times to his son Gaia). It should be noted though that it IS possible for a dying god to pass their grace onto another, as Bahamut did to Adam and later the Dragon Gods did for Chrono to enable him to battle his mother, though he had to channel their power into a control gem so that he could manage it and not be overwhelmed by it. When Zeal defeated the devil Abyss, he ultimately killed him by ripping out his Fury.
Powers[]
Grace grants a being a number of fantastic powers. A being with Grace (or Fury) can essentially do anything they want, but are largely limited by what they can conceive of or what is logically "possible." Another limitation is that effects can be countered by a being of greater power. If the target of their power has a sufficiently powerful Aura they can shrug off whatever the God tried to do to them.
Nigh Omnipotence: A God can achieve any effect they desire so long as they have the Aura to do so, doing or creating almost anything out of nothingness.
Nigh Omniscience: By concentrating on a particular person or thing, a God can know everything there is to know about it unless they are being blocked by a greater power.
Teleportation: A God can teleport themselves or others to any place they can sense.
Telepathy: A God can scan the minds of people from across the expanse of space, or even control the populations of entire planets.
Telekinesis: A god is able to move objects of incredible sizes even across interstellar distances.
Transmutation: By concentrating, a God can rearrange or even create matter from nothing. Extremely powerful gods (and devils) are even able to create new life.
Immortality: A God is truly immortal in that they cease to age upon reaching their prime and have no need of food, drink or breath, instead drawing life from their own power.
Trivia[]
- When used, pure Grace has the appearance of gleaming white light that fills those who see it with awe. Fury, by contrast, generally appears as a vibrant yellow and invokes terror.
- Manifestation of Grace is one of the stepping stones on the path to Enlightenment. Upon the achieving of Immortality, a being is able to spend more time contemplating existence uninterrupted.
- In their Oversaran Forms, John and Cain (and by extension any other Oversarans) are effectively Devils and possess Fury. This gives them access to all the powers exhibited by Gods and upper level Devils, but because of their mortal minds they are not able to process the use of omnipotence or omniscience, instead using the form to boost the powers they already have.
- While many Clans commonly infuse their Grace with elemental energies (every known member of the Dragon Clan mastered some aspect or another), others are stricter in maintaining their purity. The Angels in particular look at infusing element into their Grace as heresy and have used it as justification to go to war with other Clans.