[UA] Maternamancy

Sat Sep 6 00:13:19 PDT 2003

Here's a school I thought up, after looking over my
old Mother Theresa character from the site.  I had
made her a death-magick adept, but there's a theme
there that's distinct enough to warrent its own
school.

I tried to post it to the list before, to see what
people think before I posted it to the site, but that
message seems to have been swallowed by the list. 
Anyway, here is a more fleshed out version, submitted
for your approval.

Pardon the UA-site formatting, and let me know what
you think.

- Richard

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[b]Maternamancy[/b]

[b]AKA: Abortionists, Baby-Killers[/b]

--------------------

Women have the ability to produce life.  But they can
choose not to.  Every month a woman does not get
pregnant, she is reminded that she has not fulfilling
her duty to the species.  Further, even conceiving a
child does not ensure that it will come into the
world.  Potential life flows through every woman.  
Maternamancy dams the river.  The central paradox of
this school involves motherhood averted, wasted
potential, and aborted dynasties.  It is deeply
connected to the Devouring aspect of the Mother,
though its followers can never have children.

--------------------

[b]MATERNAMANCY BLAST STYLE[/b]

Maternamancy minor blasts manifest as massive bleeding
from the reproductive organs. The pain is often
disproportionate to the actual damage caused by the
blast itself.  Significant blasts produce spontaneous
congenital birth defects, limbs will become shorter,
gnarled and uneven, vital organs will malfunction, or
(on particularly strong successes) emerge to grow on
the outside of the body.  This “damage” will never
heal naturally, but it may be possible to correct it
with extensive surgery… or it may not.  Even weak
significant blasts causes obvious disfigurement.
Additionally, a pregnant woman by any Maternamancy
blast is very likely to suffer a miscarriage, and men
hit with significant blasts will have great difficulty
conceiving a healthy child for the rest of their life,
as they become riddled with genetic abnormalities.

--------------------

[b]STATS[/b]

[b]Generate Minor Charge:[/b] Consume your own
menstrual tissue.  Each lost ovum provides a single
minor charge.  Typically, this provides a single
charge per cycle.  If (through use of fertility drugs)
more ovum are released into the womb, more charges may
be generated.  A little known alternate method is to
eat someone else’s aborted fetus.

[b]Generate Significant Charge:[/b] Have an abortion
at least 6 weeks into a pregnancy and consume the
resulting tissue.

[b]Generate Major Charge:[/b] Murder and eat your own
child, whom you love.  You have to actually love this
child or the act only produces a significant charge. 
This causes a stress check, which you must pass to
complete the act.  Sociopaths and people with more 9
Hard notches in any one gauge are incapable of feeling
deeply enough to generate a major charge. 
Alternatively, remove and consume your own ovaries
and/or uterus.  To have a child in the first place
runs afoul of the taboo (see below), and for this
reason it is extremely rare for a practitioner to
discover the secret.  Timed perfectly, however, it is
possible to kill a beloved child at the moment of
birth, thus avoiding the taboo.

[b]Taboo:[/b] You must always walk the line between
giving and taking life, never truly doing either.  You
cannot kill anyone unless by or for magick, nor can
you ever give birth to a child that survives to take
its first breath.

[b]Random Magick Domain:[/b]  Fertility, vitality, and
souls, and development from potentials.  Maternamancy
is best at planting seeds, or prevent them from taking
root.  It is less useful for problems that have
already come to pass, but it’s great at nipping things
in the bud.  The prices for effects tend to be a
little low, but charges are usually slow in coming.

[b]Starting Charges:[/b]  A newly created
Maternamancer has 3 minor charges.

[b]Charging Tips:[/b] If you don’t work at an abortion
clinic, take fertility drugs.  Drugs can increase the
number of charges produced by a monthly period, from
one per month to one per day of the period. 
Significant charges are harder to come by, as you have
to be pregnant for a couple of months first.  RU486 –
the abortion drug – allows this to be a private
affair, and lets you keep and consume the resulting
tissue without causing any annoying questions. 
Fertility drugs can be a great help here as well, as
each developing child you abort generates a separate
significant charge – a single aborting process can
garner 2, 3, or even 4 charges.

--------------------

[b]MINOR FORMULA SPELLS[/b]

[b]Bleed[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b] The is a minor blast.  It manifests as
internal bleeding around the reproductive organs.  In
women, it causes massive uterine hemorrhaging, and is
very likely to trigger a miscarriage; in men, it
targets the testes.  The pain from this attack is
often crippling, disproportionate to the actual damage
caused.  This can also be used to attack the Soul stat
of insubstantial spirits or entities.

[b]Conception[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b] The next time the target has vaginal
intercourse, even with contraception, a child is
conceived.  A matched success allows the caster to
determine the child’s gender.  Additional charges can
cause twins, triplets, etc.

[b]Womb of the Soul[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b] Summon a demon and trap it in a
container. If your roll is lower than the demon’s
Soul, this effect lasts for one month; if you roll
higher than its Soul, the effect lasts 9 months.  This
container can be a jar, locket, or other small object
capable of sealing, or already sealed (eggs work too).
 The caster can communicate with the demon while in
contact with the womb.  Although the prospect of
release is a strong bargaining chip at first, the
longer a demon has been held, the more it’s likely to
hold a grudge upon release.  The demon is practically
unconscious at first but as it comes to term, it makes
stronger and more frequent kicks at its prison. 
(Using a significant charge can capture the demon for
a 9 months or permanently.)

[b]Fertile Mind[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b]  Cause a thought to come up in
someone’s head.  This is limited to about a single
sentence, but will be taken as their own natural
impression.   This can make a security guard think
“there’s nobody behind that desk,” or make your boss
think “she’s a good person to send on that overseas
business trip.”  It can also make be useful for making
a first impression.  There’s no emotional connection,
it just seems logical to them.  The more charges
spent, the more people affected; each additional
charge doubles the number of people who have the same
thought or come to the same conclusion.  This is
especially effective on demons, allowing you to give
them a [i]de facto[/i] command.

[b]Wasted Opportunity[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 minor charge
[b]Effect:[/b]  Turn a successful roll into a failure.
 You don’t have to designate the missed action
immediately, but can do so at any time after the
casting without requiring another action.  This spell
can only affect actions that take place after the
casting.  If it isn’t used by the end of the scene,
the curse is wasted.

--------------------

[b]SIGNIFICANT FORMULA SPELLS[/b]

[b]Postnatal Miscarriage[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] The is a significant blast, manifesting
as spontaneous congenital birth defects.  Limbs will
become shorter, gnarled and uneven, vital organs will
malfunction, or (on particularly strong successes)
emerge to grow on the outside of the body.  Even minor
damage causes obvious disfigurement.  Damage from this
attack can only be healed by multiple surgeries, not
convalecsence.  This can also be used to attack the
Soul stat of insubstantial spirits or entities.

[b]Astral Conception[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] Creates a demon-like entity that
follows the caster’s commands.  It is only demon-like,
because it never got the chance to live and develop an
ego or personality.  It is more co-operative, but less
useful than a demon.  It can be used as a spy, or a
spectral manifestation, etc. but cannot teach rituals
or provide insights.  After about 9 months of being
docile, it begins to develop its own wants and desires
and will no longer follow instructions.  Instead, it
becomes obsessed with getting a chance at life.  Treat
the resulting entity as a typical demon, but they
usually target infants for possession.

[b]Vitality[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] Channel the potential from an aborted
child to strengthen an existing life.  The target
permanently gains 5 wound points – the weak,
developing life force of a child in the womb.  Like
the Epideromancy spell [b]Body Like Iron[/b], this
does not heal wounds, but gaining additional wound
points make existing injuries less significant.  It
does not increase the Body stat, and cannot raise
wound points above twice the target’s Body stat. 
However, it can be cast on others, even those who have
died within 5 minutes of the casting, effectively
resurrecting them from the dead.  Even a successful
casting may not be sufficient, as wounds below zero
must be accounted for before any “living” points can
be endowed.  It can also correct the lingering
difficulties caused by surviving extreme wounds or
extreme old age.

[b]Bless/Curse Child[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b] This spell can bless or curse its
target’s next child.  It may not have been already
conceived or not, but it must be unborn at the time of
casting.  It can also be cast on a prepubescent child.
 The victim may never get sick or always be sickly,
genius or retarded, strong or scrawny, good-looking or
deformed, etc.  In effect, the caster can add or
subtract the result of the roll from a child’s future
stats.  Not much in the way of instant gratification,
but it’s a hell of a thing to hold over someone’s
head.

[b]Mental Abortion[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charges
[b]Effect:[/b] Remove a thought or memory from
someone’s head, never to return.  Ever.  Make your
boss forget that you slept with her husband, and go
into denial no matter how much evidence there is. 
Make her forget that she has a husband.  Make a cop
unable to think that you are the one who shot him. 
Make the hit man sent to kill you unable to even dream
of doing so.  The mob boss who has reason to send a
hit man to kill you never thinks of retaliating at
all.  If such an aborted thought is forced back into
the target’s consciousness, it causes a Rank 8 Self
check.  Each additional charge doubles the number of
targets.  Three charges can affect an entire four-man
TNI hit squad.  Five would be enough for a full jury
of your peers, plus the prosecuting attorney, the
judge, your accuser, and at least one trial expert.

[b]Sound the Well of Souls[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 1 significant charge
[b]Effect:[/b]  This spell provides insight into
potential new and replacement archetypes that are
gestating in the primal soup of the collective
unconscious.  Cast in the presence of an avatar, it
can give you the lowdown on that member of the
invisible clergy, its relative influence, current
interests, if it is in conflict with its godwalker,
the nature of its channels, etc.  Repeating this spell
on a previously-glimpsed archetype only requires a
minor charge.

[b]Reincarnate[/b]
[b]Cost:[/b] 2 significant charges
[b]Effect:[/b] This spell casts out the waiting soul
of an unborn child and substitutes a demon instead. 
This spell is the ultimate bribe for dealing with
demons, but fumbles can attract unwanted attention. 
The demon is wise to be subtle and keep quiet about
his new condition, because this spell doesn’t prevent
the cruel ones from dragging him right back out,
leaving the body comatose or dead from SIDS.

--------------------

[b]MAJOR EFFECTS[/b]

Return the dead to life.  Weaken a concept in the
collective unconscious, scrapping any progress toward
a possible new ascension, or encouraging an
archetype’s replacement.  Make it so someone was never
born (with the usual restrictions on reality
re-writes).  Make an entire extended family or village
completely sterile, or extremely fertile.  Implant a
demon in every unborn child in a city.  Vastly
increase your recuperative potential, even healing
fatal injuries.  Cause someone to reincarnate like a
Tibetan lama (with memories, but not skills) in a
newborn until the end of the world.  Be John
Malkovich.

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