[UA] Archetype complexes (Was: Kevin Matchstick)

[Greg Stolze]

>   What I want to say here is vague; I've been thinking about this issue
>for a long time but haven't come up with any good ideas...but it might be
>interesting to compare the way archetypes work in UA with the way
>characters can embody Heroes in Hero Wars/Glorantha.  There are a lot of
>similarities, but Glorantha also contains, for instance, 'archetypes' of
>myths (Heroquests) and 'archetypes' of associations (e.g. Orlanth's Ring).
>I know that UA deliberately and forcefully rejects modernist forms of
>occultism and fantasy, and the UA cosmology is sharply individualist, but
>I'm still interested in trying to construct analogues of myths-as-rituals
>and archetypal groups.

Actually, one of the ideas I kicked around was for a resolutely normal,
mundane small town (I was going to use my hometown -- shouts out to
Davenport, oh yeah!) that is home to a powerful cabal of sorcerers.  See
this town (you could really put it anywhere) was founded where the IC used
to become human and meet, before those motherfucking aboriginal americans
came to North America.  (Now they've had to move somewhere even more
obscure for their yearly incarnation.)  Because the barrier between
Statosphere and mortalsphere got weakened or something, there's a
resonance.  This means that every year, a certain number of young people
become... attuned.

If the attuned teens act out their story "properly," nothing much happens.
But if they're prevented from enacting their destiny, weird shit goes down.
Quite often, unpleasant weird shit.

There's a seven year cycle, enacting (of course) the Seven Basic Plotlines*
with a few variations.  As the PCs arrive, the cabal is sighing, wringing
their hands, but planning to manipulate a couple high schoolers into the
plotline of "Boy Loses Girl/Lover's Suicide Variation."

These particular sorcerers focus on making expected narratives occur.  But
that was as far as I got with it.

-G.

*Which everone knows about but no one seems to KNOW.



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