Sophiamancy

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aka Eggheads, Knowitalls

You're a genius, plain and simple. You don't have the best job in the world. You certainly didn't spend your money on a fancy degree, and you may not be recognized by any of the so-called experts in any field. You're beyond those paltry distractions. You know that true wisdom can't be bought, and it can't be given. You discover it, snapping up every last fact and tidbit you can get your grubby hands on. You fill your head with all the knowledge you can get your hands on, and you can apply it in ways that those tweed elitists could never understand. All the scientists, all the professors, all the "experts" in the world can't possibly fathom the workings of your intellect. You're a genius, plain and simple.

It all goes back to the scientific method. You see, the use of carefully applied reasoning has debunked quite a few of the world's most beloved spiritual beliefs, removing dangerous ignorance. This is good, but it also takes many people's sense of meaning and belonging, replacing it with complicated mathematics and impersonal physics. The scientific method also allowed us to produce useful medicines and technology, which is now indispensable to many modern societies. This has created a weird sort of working relationship to science in the mass human conciousness. While it's known for its usefulness and necessity, it's distrusted by many for its impenetrability and coldness.

The sad thing about this is that science is ostensibly more accessible and free than religious mysticism. Education is considered not only a basic right, but a need by many, and, with more and more of our habitat being replaced with increasingly advanced technology, it's become all the more important. However, the really advanced stuff is difficult to teach, and not really necessary to operate much of the tools we need, so much of it is omitted. Most people know about the immune system, but have no clue what immunoglogulin does. People send e-mails every day, but couldn't tell you which direction network addressing is read. Roller coaster rides may be free, but good luck guessing how fast you're going, or how it was built.

This discrepancy is where Sophiamancy comes in. While someone, somewhere knows the chemical kinetics of those pills you take every day, they probably aren't the ones who designed the system that produces them, and they sure as hell didn't do the research that discovered the mechanics of the illness they treat. Sophiamancers make it a point to know all this, and their magick tells them how to refine those pills to a more efficient form. Or into a subtle and deadly poison. Or into part of a solvent to make purified semiconductor. Or into a reagent that makes any blue-eyed ingester suddenly go blind. Sophiamancy is all about using expert knowledge faster and better than the experts do, in ways that expert knowledge says isn't possible.

The central paradox of Sophiamancy is that it relies on something that serves and is open for the everyday person, but is alienating, impersonal, and exculsive to most individuals. Many Knowitalls were once bright, wide-eyed young students who were bitterly rejected from their academic pursuits for one reason or another. Other practitioners are just that rare intersection of the scientifically curious and pathologically anti-social.

Stats

Generate a Minor Charge: Spend four hours studying academic literature covering a single topic that corresponds to one of your applicable skills. The "applicable skill" in question is a skill you must have at no less than 5%, and it must be at least as specific as the topic you study. This obviously includes reading books like "The Art of Electronics" by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill when you have a skill like "Firmware Hacking" or "Electronics Engineering" but this particular topic wouldn't include "Car Maintenance" or "Online Gaming". Also, "academic" in this case doesn't have to refer to something you can get a degree in at a university, but it must be material that was written by an expert and is recognized as a legitimate resource by most of the other experts in the field. For example, if you have "Capoeira" at 5% or more, you can charge up by reading "Roots of the Dance-Fight-Game" by Nestor Capoeira, as it's a resource recognized by most Capoeira experts as correct and useful. You as the player really don't have to know every particular book and paper read for the charge, just know the topic it covers. Having multiple skills that the study material could apply to does not grant additional charges.

Generate a Significant Charge: Using your insight and all you have learned, you must complete an Hermetic Thesis on a specific aspect of a topic that corresponds to one of your proficient skills. The particulars you wish to write about this topic must be at least as specific as a non-magickal skill you possess at no less than 20%. The work must also be exhaustive, a rush job taking at least a week's worth of mundane research and experimentation, and another week of writing and revising to complete. Your Theses are the crystallization of your personal take on your accumulated knowledge, and must never be published or shared, willingly or not, with anyone else. You receive the charge once the Hermetic Thesis is completely printed or transferred to a paper medium. Some Eggheads buy several heavy blank leather-bound books in which to write their Theses, while others just type them up, buy a nondescript plastic binder and print the pages off at Kinko's. The charge is contained within the bound copy of your work, and you must have it in a safe place somewhere when you use the charge. Afterwards, the physical work is just another piece of flammable media, and you can do what you want with it, throwing it away if you wish (though this is almost always a bad decision).

Generate a Major Charge: Create a new branch of mundane science, complete with a Numinous Dissertation containing thorough research and comprehensive proofs of its workings. At this level of innovation, it doesn't matter if you're the only one who knows about it or not, but you must be recognized by all who know of it as its founder. Albert Einstein's "Annus Mirabilis" papers would have counted for this if he were a Sophiamancer, as would (if Sophiamancy were somehow plausible way back then) Al-Jazari's "Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices" way back in 1206 AD.

Taboo: Sophiamancers have a two things they must avoid. First off, your work is yours and yours alone. Anytime someone else learns from any of your Hermetic Theses, containing a charge or not, you taboo. This only happens once for each person who reads your work, but nothing's stopping them from passing that Thesis on to others who haven't read it yet. For this reason, most Knowitalls jealously guard their work, whether it serves them any purpose at all, and many develop secret codes that they write in, to keep others from understanding anything (and therefore causing the adept to wipe) even if they possess them. The second condition of the Sophiamancy taboo is that you must never allow someone else to teach or give you collaboration on any of the mundance sciences while you work or study. You can build on the work of others, if you can acquire it impersonally, or without supplicating yourself to them, but you can't ask for their help. You must always play the role of one superior in knowledge, never a colleague or a student.

Random Magick: Sophiamancy is the magick of exclusivity. It's great for influencing things or producing effects that would be beyond the hoi-polloi's comprehension. It also works well for showing up another expert in an advanced field, asserting your intellectual dominance, or influencing the abilities or expertise of others, usually negatively. However, it's terrible at influencing people, manipulating social situations, or affecting things that people usually know or specifically care about.

Formula Spells

Minor Formula Spells

Theory in Practice (1 Minor Charge): Much like Cliomancy's "Instant Zen Master", this spell allows you to use your Sophiamancy skill, flip-flops and all, in place of a skill you already have. Unlike "Instant Zen Master", while this spell is in effect, you can't gain any charges or use any other spells. This lasts for six rounds of combat, or about an hour in a relaxed situation.

Plebeian (2 Minor Charges): The target of this spell must succeed a Mind check with your Mind skill as a minimum roll, or they get a -20% shift to all their skill rolls involving skills that overlap with yours. Usually, "overlaps" means that their skill is being used for something that yours can also do, but each case is determined by the GM. This effect lasts for two rounds in combat, or fifteen minutes in a relaxed situation. Adding an additional charge increase the duration by one combat round or five minutes, with a limit of two more charges.

Analytic Insight (2 Minor Charges): This divination spell affects one manufactured object you are touching with one hand. By focusing intently on the object, you can picture the design of it, from the general principles used all the way down to the equations involved. More specific information requires a few seconds of concentration to attain. This works much like having a book open about the object. While using this spell, you can refer to it, but you don't know it any more than you know something from a book you're skimming. When you break contact with the object, you can use as much of the information as you can remember from the spell, but you're not guaranteed to know anything you didn't spend time commiting to memory. Also, you may not necessarily understand everything you see. While using this spell, you can't divide your attention enough to, say, write anything down, but nothing's stopping you from telling someone else who can about how the object works.

Intuitive Leap (2 Minor Charges): To use this spell, state a problem you are trying to think of a solution to. The spell will give you a hint for the next step to take towards that solution. The answer usually will only be a small push in right direction, giving you only the vaguest of information relating directly to the problem. You'll have to do the rest of the brainwork. Having a more detailed problem statement usually gives a more specific answer, but the spell tends to nitpick and sometimes seems to actively misinterpret what it's told. Some Knowitalls try to be clever by phrasing their problem so that the response will say more than just the obvious answer. They sometimes get their wish, but almost always with frustratingly vague or contrived answers that are useless without the adept's smart-assed intentions to provide some context.

4(N)^6 (3 Minor Charges): This formula spell gives you powers of investigation rivalling Sherlock Holmes, or at least the late Mr. Gadget. Think about a question you're trying to come up with an answer to, and which specific area you're looking at that will be analyzed for relevant data. For the next thirty minutes, the spell will make the area seem to soundlessly sing to you, each particular clue crying out to be made known. While inspecting the named scene for useful information, every clue possibly pertaining to your query will be obvious to you without the need of a notice check. This includes things that relate directly to what you're looking for ("That tiny droplet of blood up against the counter's footboard indicates that something violent did happen here,") and things that only relate to what you already know about the question ("Those ashes and flecks of melted plastic that've been swept under the fridge say that Mr. Johnson, whom we know is a Sterno, was not the victim in this attack,"). Used responsibly, this spell can help you determine things that would've been missed. If your question or scene of investigation is too broad, however, you will find yourself positively bombarded with redundant and obtuse information, usually to the point of causing symptoms not unlike a particular debilitating panic attck.

Reverse Engineer (4 Minor Charges): Take one manufactured product, reduce it to its basic active components, and cast this spell while doing so. This spell allows you to remember once, at any later time, how to assemble a functioning copy of the product with access to sufficiently alike materials. You won't necessarily understand how the product works, just how to put it together from similar stuff. "Sufficiently alike" means that whatever you construct it out of can be made to fulfill a similar purpose as the piece of the original device. Repurposing something completely different can work in a pinch, but usually requires some skill penumbra that would give you knowledge of the process involved. You can stretch the use of your copied device and ad-hoc building blocks somewhat, but having an explanation for each piece's purpose in the overall design can lend a good deal of credibility. Have a pen and paper handy when start prying the remote control open.

Significant Formula Spells

Technobabble (1 Significant Charge): This spell allows you to completely change one manufactured object's function. To cast this spell, you must touch the object in question, and provide an "expert" analysis of its capabilities. This involves using as many polysyllabic words as you can squeeze into a bullshit explanation, and speaking as authoritatively as you can. Once at least one person present is convinced that your description is true, the spell takes effect. For the next thirty minutes, the object will operate as you described, regardless of how ridiculous your explanation was. You can double the duration by spending two minor charges when you cast spell, up to a total of six charges for a four-hour effect. However, this spell will end if someone in the presence of the object determines that your analysis was wrong. At this point the object will resume its normal function, with whatever other weirdness it did being written off as bizarre malfunctioning or a prank. If you're around when this happens, plenty of people will be pissed off at you.

Black Box (3 Significant Charges): The short version is that this spell allows you to construct a device that will reliably perform one specific function in one specific context that you state when the spell is cast. The longer version is that, upon casting this spell with some particular intention in mind, something strange and wonderful clicks in your head and you'll know how to make that intention into reality. The result of this inspiration will be a contraption, made from things you already own, that will function as specified for the exact conditions of the initial intention. For example, if you think "I need to be able to boil an egg in my kitchen for breakfast instantanteously without needing water,", you'll be able to create a black-box device that will do just that. However, the exact air and heat flow from your fridge as it cycles in the morning will be an absolute requirement for it to work, so it will only work in your kitchen around breakfast time. This ignition of the neurons makes whoever casts this spell able to see connections and applications that seem obtuse or even illogical to everyone else. This new understanding can only be used for the construction of the Black Box, and will be completely forgotten once it's completed. From that point on, everyone including you will see the Black Box as a mysterious configuration of seemingly random parts with no comprehensible internal logic, even though it doesn't use any sort of magick to operate. Unnatural checks of varying severity upon completion of the Box are almost always appropriate. You can make a lot of things with this spell, but the function cannot be something explicitly magickal (you can't say "I want a TV remote that can do a blast effect at whoever's in front of it when I push 'play'"), and must be something conceivable by our understanding of modern science, though it may stretch things a bit. Time travel is out of the question, but something that can destroy an object and instantly recreate it elsewhere out of garbage isn't. Black Boxes tend to become defunct after about six months, and each Egghead can only have one working Black Box at a time.