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Rituals

Adepts

Electromancy

Also a cool school idea- high tech mechanomancy? Awesome. Perhaps, because technology is so disposable, they can't keep using the same device for more than a few months before moving on to something else.

Generating a minor charge is based off purchase (or creation) of a new high-tech gadget, meaning adepts can either spend money or time to create a charge. Generating a significant charge comes from getting spoken admiration of the gadget from acknowledged experts. The mage has his or her own set of strict qualifications for what constitutes an expert, buddies won't do. A major charge comes from introducing a revolutionary or completely new hi-tech gadget into the mainstream, but it cannot be made or modified by magick in any way. The act of creating the gadget must be pure human research.

Iconomancy

The Taboo for Iconomancy has been slightly altered by the über-social world we now inhabit. Stalkers are not punished by their being incidentally involved in something posted online, but any use of social media- generating memes, uploading YouTube videos, having a Facebook, commenting on an online article- all break taboo. Further, no new charges can be made until the Iconomancer has “atoned” and taken down the offending bit of information.

Incompemancy

See Incompemancy

Mechanomancy

I don't think Mechanomancers should yet get a 10% dock. If anything, the school has somehow gotten up and started thriving again, with steampunk subculture becoming vibrant among nerds. Mechanomancy might have been on its last legs in 2002, but it's still walking fine in 2011 as nostalgia for a period that never existed.

Mediamancy

See Mediamancy

Hentaimancy

The wide spread of free, accessible, and sometimes bizarre webporn gave rise to new school of magick, similar at first glance to pornomancy, but having more in common with videomancy and infomancy. The paradox could stem from the fact that sex is something usually seen as intimate and unifying, yet frequenters of media that record and celebrate it in all its forms tend be looked down on, and wind up feeling ashamed and isolated. It could also include the idea that pretty much everybody now watches online pornography, but will never let anyone else know about it, like it's a unifying community ceremony that everyone attends blindfolded.

Sophiamancy

The scientific method is an intellectual tool that everyone associates with progress, enlightenment, and freedom from the constraints and fears of old superstition. Ideally, this would be made ready for everyone everywhere equally. However, our modern society possesses science and technology so advanced that it becomes opaque and impenetrable without lots of time-consuming and usually expensive education. The most up-to-date, empirically determined scientific knowledge can sound hokey and superstitious to the average joe, but, compared to all the information out there in the universe, we haven't even made that much progress towards understanding how Everything works. Sophiamancy draws from the widening gap between common sense and cutting edge, exploiting the vagaries of modern theory and the limits of the human mind alike.

Avatars

The Fool

The Ditz? I'd like to see more about that, it's a cool idea. Especially since, if the True Executive Ascended, the Fool would be ripe for the chopping block.

The Masterless Man

Suffered? Definitely. Could be that the current Godwalker of this one is trying to replace it with the Entrepreneur. Don't think it's happened yet, though.

The Masterless Man, in fact, is currently in fact in the middle of a war for succession. There's a three-way Archetype war going on between the current Archetype, and two high-level Avatars attempting to depose him, one as the Entrepreneur and the other as the Hacker. The Entrepreneur is the current Godwalker, but every so often one deposes the other, wages war upon his Archetype, only to be stopped in his Ascension attempt by the other's gaining power and deposing him.

The Rebel

Bit of controversy here regarding my initial thought that Anonymous, as an entity, is collectively the Godwalker of the Rebel. I do note that a lot of you assumed I meant that Anonymous had Ascended, which was not what I meant. As the Rebel is one of the Avatars most likely to have shifted in the Clergy, I'm interested to see what people develop here.

The Terrorist

Simon Diulio, as per Fly to Heaven. Possibly an interesting NPC-only class if stats could be come up with for it, along the lines of the Dark Stalker.

Maybe one of the channels could amp up the madness check that people get from observing his acts of terror by 1, and by 2 if they're the ones targeted by the act.
Writerwolf 22:15, November 2, 2011 (UTC)

The True Executive

As mentioned elsewhere, the True Executive is likely the Ascension that happened at the end of To Go, so all the rules on pp. 154 of To Go apply now instead of the normal rules for the True King. The True King, as an avatar, no longer exists.

The Hermit --> Misanthrope

Distant, disillusioned, bitter, the wise old Hermit has become the cynical Misanthrope. Modern communication is so widespread, and so much of the Earth is populated that physical isolation has become difficult to achieve. In its place, emotional and social desolation have gained more significance. I can't think of any real people that would embody this archetype, but there are plenty of fictional characters, like Dr. House, Randal Graves(maybe a dated example), and even Dexter Morgan. Perhaps Howard Hughes was channelling this archetype when he withdrew into isolation in the top floor of a Las Vegas Casino, inimately connected to a bank of telephone lines and surrounded by a personal staff kept at arms length. Misanthropes must stay connected to the media, always receiving a constant input on the wretched state of mankind while rejecting as many forms of personal involvement with other people as possible.

The Rationalist

See also: The Rationalist


Armed with only reason, ethics, some clever debate techniques, and his (and perhaps a select few others') own intellect, he's here to make sense of our world and solve its many problems! This archetype's influence is especially apparent on the web, with the growing numbers of internet atheists and warriors of progress. The rationalist embodies the hope for a brighter, more enlightened future of peace and prosperity, along with the struggle against the barriers put up by the tangled and chaotic concerns of mainstream authority. This archetype is particularly interesting, because it began long ago as incredibly idealistic and innocent, but has recently become associated with beleaguered doggedness, and a sense of intellectual elitism. Figures: John Locke and Isaac Newton for the "old school enlightenment thinkers" version, with Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens for the "new school critics of traditionalist authority" version. Carl Sagan, of course, fits nicely with both.

The Merchant

Despite an increased focus on capitalism, the Merchant archetype is weakened more than ever. The idea of a middle man who can get you whatever you need, for a price, sounds attractive but who feels like they can pay anymore? With Faustian bargains at their disposal fewer potential customers, the Merchant avatar paths have become bloodier, colder and more willing to put their own assets on the line.

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