[UA] Traumamancy

[Joshua Knorr]

"Life is pain.  Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you
something."
	- Dread Pirate Roberts

We all go through periods of suffering, grief, and loss.  Each person's life
story has tragic chapters - times of darkness and depression, pains both
great and small.  If we're lucky, we come through the other side better
people.  We learn from our mistakes and losses, and we set the pain behind
us and move forward.

Not traumamancers.  For these adepts, pain is both power and price - it is
the source of their magic and the downside that comes with it.
Traumamancers (sometimes called "Hamlets") are obsessed with a certain
painful event from their past - a Core Trauma.  A Core Trauma can be almost
anything painful, from the loss of a dear friend to a suicide attempt to
some sort of abuse.  Traumamancers are obsessed with keeping this event
fresh in their mind, yet they cannot achieve any sort of closure or
resolution for it, either.  From this tension comes the power they wield
over the emotions of others.

If these adepts seem to have more than a passing resemblance to
epideromancers, you're right. But where epideromancers torture themselves in
order to gain mastery over their bodies, the pain traumamancers inflict on
themselves serves to allow that pain mastery over them.

Note that a Core Trauma need not be a single event.  It can a series of
occurrences, but there needs to be a central pain in order to provide the
focus a Traumamancer needs.  A Core Trauma also corresponds to one of the
five Madness Meters, much as a Fear stimulus does.

Taboo: Traumamancers cannot seek or achieve any sort of resolution of
closure regarding their Core Trauma.  They cannot get effective counseling
for their problems, nor can they come to such an understanding on their own.
The wound must always be there, open, for a traumamancer to gain power.
What this also means is that Traumamancers cannot gain Hardened notches when
exposed to stimuli that closely relate to their Core Trauma [GM's
discretion].  A Traumamancer can choose to automatically fail the check in
question (thus avoiding the risk of getting Hardened and losing all
charges), but doing so is in and of itself a Self-6 check.  Remember,
traumamancers always *think* that they are trying to come to grips with
their pain.

Minor charge: Spend an hour meditating on your Core Trauma.  This is
frequently done with the aid of "mementos", various places or objects
(trinkets, songs, books, esp. diaries) that somehow relate to the Core
Trauma.

Significant charge: Spend four hours talking to someone else about the pain
in either his/her life or your own.  Note that if the focus of the
conversation is the adept's Core Trauma, this conversation cannot possibly
lead to meaningful resolution.  If the adept is on the receiving end of some
competent therapy, he/she will begin to unconsciously sabotage the dialogue
as he/she begins to feel the power of pain leaving.  After a session or two
of this, a therapist will most likely conclude that the patient is "not
serious" about treatment and will end the professional relationship.
Alternatively, create a new "memento" relating to your trauma.  The most
common way to do this is with some artistic expression (painting, song,
writing), although there are other ways possible as well.

Major charge: Witness an event that replicates your Core Trauma.  This
re-enactment must be real on the part of the participants - it cannot be
deliberately staged, although more than one Hamlet has unconsciously
arranged circumstances to unwittingly induce others into participating in
such events.
OR
Sever ties to all your "mementos".  If they are physical things you must
destroy them.  If they are places you must vow never to visit them again.
Traumamancers call this "Facing the Fire".  It represents an attempt to be
free of one's Trauma once and for all - and will result in the loss of all
other charges.  It is very dangerous - more than one adept has cracked under
the pressure and succumbed to insanity when trying to confront his/her past.
Needless to say that multiple Madness rolls will be involved.  If
successful, the Traumamancer has one last major charge.  Once it is spent,
the adept loses all magickal abilities and is no longer a Traumamancer.

Random magickal domain: Emotion and fate.  Traumancers specialize in making
things go right for people (a misguided attempt to correct the terrible
events of the past) or in putting people at ease with their unquiet
thoughts.

[Formula spells later.]

Joshua Knorr
WWBBD?


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