[UA] Archetype: The Man Against The Twilight (?)

IamRebis at aol.com IamRebis at aol.com
Wed Dec 15 11:43:56 PST 1999


  An interesting question came up in my campaign, and I'd like some input 
from the list…

  A character in my campaign is an epideromancer, which turns out to be the 
form of magick that the player himself (Preston) would pick if he had the 
choice in real life, because he finds the idea that "I could stab myself in 
the leg and make myself more muscular?  Or thinner without exercising?  Or 
more handsome?  And change my hairstyle, or eye color, or skin tone?  Where 
do I sign up?"
  And even though I'm throwing the standard UA "Things That Suck" at him, 
he's loving the campaign, and forming his character (who, ironically is a 
version of Preston himself) into The Man He'd Like To Be.
  And his character has recently found out about the Invisible Clergy, and le 
Compte, and The Big Reboot…

  … And he's decided that he wants to stop it.

  He's said, "I know that it's selfish, but I don't care.  I don't want to 
lose everything that I've gained, because my life, for once, is going well.  
Screw everything else, I want to stop these ascensions, and hold off the 
reboot."

  We've talked about it, and he wants to become the archetype of "The Guy Who 
Wants To Stop The 332nd Ascension And Prevent Le Compte From Ascending, 
Therefore Preventing This Age From Ending And The Next Age From Dawning."

  And so I've started thinking of it as "The Man Against The Twilight," 
because he wants to stop the twilight and the coming dawn.

  We both figure that one of his lower channels would be the ability to sense 
which people around him are avatars, and either really good rolls on that 
first channel or his second channel allowing him to understand what the 
target avatar's channels allow them to achieve.  Maybe a later channel would 
allow him to block a target avatar's channels from activating (I'd say a roll 
of 74% would block any of the target's first 3 channels). 

  I think this is an absolutely great idea for an archetype, because it's 
mostly informative in nature, would make the avatar depend on his own 
abilities to stop or kill the other avatars after he had idintefied and 
temporarily neutralized the avatar's channels, and would allow for some 
excellent roleplaying opportunities, but the problem I have, and thus my 
question to the list is:

  Do you think that this could be a valid archetype?  Do you think that 
someone else could have already ascended as this archetype?  Do you think 
that there could have been at least one other person of this age who 
understood about the 333, and wanted and tried to stop it so much that it 
became a part of universal consciousness and thus allowed him to ascend?  
  Because this seems like such a secretive thing that the general public 
would never hear of it (would it be possible for the archetype to ascend if 
there were enough people in the Occult Underground that were aware of his 
quest?) that the person would never get that "boost" to be able to join the 
clergy.  It would seem like what Preston's character is doing is something 
original and totally new, and so he would not have any channels at all, and 
would just suddenly disappear, thus filling a spot in the Clergy, working 
against exactly what he was trying to prevent, and setting up the possibility 
for others to follow in his footsteps as the avatar of the Man Against The 
Twilight.
  However, an interesting idea is that upon his ascension, the general public 
would become aware of the Clergy, and finally understand what's going on…

  It's a really neat concept; just one that has enough of a paradox in it to 
make me think that it probably wouldn't work.

  Whattaya think, folks?


  - Rebis

  "Just when you think you've got enough problems with the 12 
   hopping vampires posing as a basketball team, some lunatic 
   from the Leftist People's Rightest Front jumps up with a shoebox 
   and an alarm clock and demands that the plane be diverted to 
   Leeds."           
               - John Tynes on why setting roleplaying scenarios in 
                 an airplane can be A Good Thing.

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