[UA] Cloudbusting and an archetype

[sneadj at mindspring.com]

Royal Minister of Stuff <yokeltania at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm starting to like this whole Archetype thing. 
> Grownups who Listen to Kids tend, in literature, at
> least, to be able to change the kids into things. 
> They shape the children into heroes or theives or
> broken husks -like a miniature form of the IC shaping
> the world.  There always seems to be some enormous
> sacrifice involved, though.  Merlin was entrapped, Obi
> Wan ate lightsaber, the Pied Piper dissapeared into a
> mountain, and Gacy was jailed.  Yet, they still
> influenced -even communicated- with their, um,
> charges? Victims? afterward.  I don't know about
> Wonka, though. 

I'm not certain that this always happens.  It didn't happen to Wonka 
or the inventor of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  I can easily see them 
being chased out of town, but that's different.

So, what would the various Channels be?  I'm thinking the 1-50% 
one would be roll to get a child or group of children to like, accept, 
and talk to you.  You could ask kids about all the secrets they 
would never tell adults, anything from their fantasy worlds and 
invisible friends, to the odd occult thing they saw that their mom or 
dad said must have been a dream, to the fact that one of their 
parents is sexually abusing them and made them promise never to 
tell.

The 91% one should be pretty extreme.  I'm thinking of something 
like being able to roll to break any one physical law (walk up a wall, 
possibly put a car in your rucksack (roll again to pull it back out)).  
I'd say these effects can't be used to directly harm anyone.  OTOH, 
this might be a bit too doctor Seuss.

Any suggestions for other channels?

The taboos are obvious acting too much like an adult, no regular 
job, no sex...

Also, it occurs to me that one of these folks would make a truly 
awesome Mechanomancer.  The wacky gadgets clockworkers 
make fit with this archetype perfectly, and I can even see one 
forgetting portions his or her adult life to remain young at heart and 
build cool stuff.  Such a character could easily be very sweet, very 
creepy, or (if done really well) both.  This is the first concept for a 
Mechanomancer I've ever really wanted to play.

Comments?

-John Snead sneadj at mindspring.com