[UA] The Mentally Ill Mathematician

[mattias.ostklint at husqvarna.se]

Well yo. To continue a fine tradition (
http://www.unknown-armies.com/content_comments.php?id=729_0_3_0_C17) I
hereby give you:

Avatar: Avatar: The Mentally Ill Mathematician ? remixed

When I first saw this I thought "yawn, another boring fan-avatar I will
positively never use". Then came the "Prometheus ? bearer of flame" remark,
and it really struck a chord. This could be really interesting. So this
"remix" should be considered well-deserved critique, not in the sense of
"you've really put your foot in it", but rather "well done! here's what I
think". I'll just go through it as it stands today and leave my comments in
[brackets].


The Mentally Ill Mathematician

[Call it "The Bringer of Flame" (bringer of light is a bit taken?). Mental
and Mathematician is a decent alliteration, but not cool enough. Promethean
Hero will do as well, but is a bit close to Algerian Hero for my liking.
And fire is cool.]

"Poets do not go mad; but chess players do.  Mathematicians go mad, and
cashiers; but creative artists very seldom.  I am not attacking logic: I
only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination."
-G.K. Chesterton

"The Mentally Ill Mathematician seems now in some ways to be what the
Knight Errant, Mortified Saint, Tortured Artist, and Mad Scientist have
been for other areas: sort of our Prometheus, the one who goes to
forbidden places and returns with gifts we all can use, but he alone pays
for."
-David Foster Wallace

[Quotes are not always appropriate. These are ok, but not great, and why
quote writers when you write about scientists? On a different note, I think
this path should be more about sacrifice than insanity. Most scientists,
I'll have you know, aren't insane, or even particularly eccentric (even if
it is a common misconception among non-scientists). Most really good
scientists, however, do sacrifice something for science. Most common
sacrifices are probably better pay and time with their family, but Marie
Curie (two-time Nobel prize winner (once shared with her husband, once on
her own) handled Radium so pure it glowed with her bare hands and died of
cancer.]

This Archetype is more fittingly called The Promethean Hero, since in
Aboriginal Culture, the first Ascension was someone channelling the
Firebringer.  Then, through the ages, the archetype changed with a series
of ascensions, until Kurt Godel ascended in the early 20th century as the
Mentally Ill Mathematician.  I

[I think fire was invented before Australia was populated, the comments on
aboriginal culture was probably more meant as an exercise and a test to see
if a particular avatar idea is good or not "Would this path mean anything
to someone living in an aboriginal culture? If yes, keep and develop, if
no, scrap it."]

John Nash was the last known Godwalker (though he wasn't aware of his role
as such).  His recovery, informed sources say, indicates a new ascension,
and a new role for the Avatar.  No-one's seen a memory-wiped Kurt Godel
wandering around, so it's unclear how accurate any of this is.

[Who's John Nash? I have a Master of Science and I do not know. This might
mean that I am ignorant, but it might also mean that you're to obscure.]

Fire to the cavemen, nihilism to the 20th century, heliocentrism,
relativity, string theory, transfinite numbers, and so forth. The
archetype is generally about creating (in the words of Alan Moore through
Warren Ellis) mad and beautiful ideas.

[And you keep insisting on quoting writers about scientist. :-)]

Symbols: Unkempt Hair.  Poor Grooming.  Absent Mindedness.  The image is
of one who is utterly consumed in contemplation of grave mysteries.

[Add fire, carrying a torch and scars for that old-school feel. Add a
deformity (mental or physical, wasn't Prometheus limp? Not sure.) to make
Stephen Hawkins a strong contender. The symbols as they stand are matched
by an eighties Bill Gates, and that's not quite what we're aiming for.]

Taboos: A Haircut, a well-fitted suit, awareness of the social norms about
you.   High Social skills, if demonstrated, constitute breaches of taboo.

[Not carrying a tinder, lighter or matchbox. Does it seem odd? I just think
the image of a famous scientist, running (misfit glasses and runner shorts
from the seventies, skinny and pale), carrying the torch into the opening
ceremonies of the Olympics, lighting the fire and ascending is just too
cool.]

Channels:

[I think one of the channels should still be about fire, for old-school
throwback reasons and as a reminder of the origins of this path. If it is
the first, it could be "Any attempt to make a fire using proper tools will
work, anytime and anywhere (not without oxygen, combustible material and so
on, of course). If it is somewhere in the middle, perhaps something about
fire as a cleanser, remove failed notches, various control/tracking spells
and astral parasites if you wilfully burn yourself (probably not a good
idea, but something on that power level). If it's the last one, think
fire+powerful+conspicuous and you can't go far wrong. (Death ray, yeah!)]

1-50% "No-one understands but me."  Flipflop any Isolation or Self-based
check if the result is under your A:MIM skill.

51-70% "It all makes sense." Take a failed mark in a madness meter in
exchange for retroactive success (ala Entropomancy's I Win) on a
Mind-based roll.

71-90% "Blow your mind." Wherein whatever crazy new idea the MIM is
bringing to society ("Man can make fire??" "Time is relative?" "I can't
believe it's not butter!") is so revolutionary that it can actually cause
an Unnatural stress check equal to the tens digit of the avatar skill.

91+% "Theft of Fire".  The MIM can create a minor ritual.  Success on a
Mind-based check associated with whatever work the Character is known for
gives one-time results as though the Character were performing a ritual.
This roll cannot be flip-flopped via the Archetype's first channel.
A matched success roll on this channel means the ritual is Significant.
An OACOWA locks the ritual within reality permanently (or until the next

[OACOWA was removed from second edition. Sad, but true.]

rewrite). Before Prometheus realised "friction creates heat, enough
friction creates fire", it was a cold, cold place.  This, in essence,
creates new rituals for the current universe. (e.g., The Pointing of the
Bone came into being within Australian Aboriginal culture when a Shaman
channelled this Archetype)

[To staple "Friction Creates Heat" into reality permanently, or even have a
chance at it, should probably not be something that potentially hundreds of
people (high-ranking but non-godwalker avatars) could attempt daily. This
is either a godwalker channel or, perhaps more likely, an ascension level
event.]

And if you want, you can make it a critical success (even if you failed)
by... dying. The manner of your death and the time is going to take...
thats not known in advance, but acute mental illness ending in suicide is
now the popular way to go. (in a different context, you have Rainer Marie
Rilke dying by the prick of a rose thorn, Hans Christian Andersen dying in
the long run by complications of injuries he got when he fell out of his
bed... unlikely and wasting diseases of body and mind that leave you
enough time to still do something are common, as opposed to dropping dead
before writing your masterpiece)

[Reiner Marie Rilke, Hans Christian Andersen? authors! But I'm not helping
here, so I 'll just leave it]

Ok, that was it, flame away!

Mattias Östklint
dept of Clean Thought