[UA] The Lady v1.6

[Jeff Wikstrom]

It occured to me that I never sent out the revised version of the Lady archetype, currently being channeled by Isabel Manteufel (former spoiled child, failed ballet dancer, and now nurse).

Frankly, I think it's slightly overpowered, but there are only so many hours in the day.



**The Lady**

“She keeps moet et chandon
In her pretty cabinet
’Let them eat cake,’ she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
A built-in remedy
For Khrushchev and Kennedy
At anytime an invitation
You can’t decline.”
(“Killer Queen,” Freddie Mercury)

Attributes:  The Lady has no power of her own, but feeds on the men around and under her.  She cloys and assists, manages and manipulates.  The maiden whose favor the knight wears into battle, the queen for whose honor the musketeer duels a dozen of the Cardinal’s guards, and the “equally powerful woman” who stands behind a powerful man: these are all mirrors of the Lady.  The Lady stands in stark opposition to the Flying Woman; while the latter seeks power through independence from patriarchal society, the former co-opts that society into dependence on her.  

The Lady is also a weakened archetype, as cultural shifts challenge traditional gender roles and the exalted/subjugated synthesis of the Lady’s position becomes obsolete.  Between Hilary Clinton’s Senate seat and Elizabeth Dole’s presidential bid, there may soon come a significant revision of the Lady’s role as eminence grise and counselor.  In many ways, the Lady is the antithesis of the Masterless Man, and like the Masterless Man, she is increasingly a relic of a bygone age.

Like the Flying Woman and the Mother, men cannot channel the Lady.

Taboo:  The Lady cannot experience degradation; she is too good for this world, and exposure to the harsher side of existence weakens her purity.  Thus, she cannot open her own doors or ketchup bottles, pay for a meal, or fire a gun when a man is present to perform the task for her.  The only exceptions are the rigidly defined areas of “women’s work:” housecleaning, gardening, teaching, sewing, and nursing.  

Symbols:  Jewelry, particularly necklaces and collars, particularly pearls.  Height – either literal pillars or high places such as Rapunzel’s tower.  Fur coat, expensive shoes.  Merlins in falconry.  And the color pink.

Suspected Avatars in History:  Eleanor of Aquitane was one of the best-known avatars of the Lady.  Jacqueline Onassis may have channeled the Lady unknowingly.  The jury remains out on Lady Bird Johnson.

Masks:  Parvati (Hindustani), Penelope (Greek), Guinevere (Arthurian), Yseult.  The few occult mythologists who know (and care) enough argue about how to classify Athena.  Cate Blanchett appeared as the Lady in a recent fantasy blockbuster trilogy.

1-50%:  To the Lady, men are pliable, easily led creatures.  When making Charm, Lie, or other social skill checks, the Lady rolls as normal, but succeeds if the result is lower than the higher of her Charm (or other social) skill and her Avatar: the Lady skill, and can be flip-flopped if either skill is the Lady’s obsession skill.  If the result is less than both skills, the result is treated as a matched success.  A matched success becomes a critical success.  The channel functions only if the target of the skill check in question is male and not a sociopath.

51-70%: The Lady’s aura of propriety is palpable.  Men around her must treat her with utmost courtesy: opening doors for her, buying her dinner, refraining from expletives in her presence, et cetera.  It’s still possible for a man to act against the Lady’s wishes; he can forcibly tie her to a chair and steal her television set, but he must do so politely.  Failure to comply with these limits causes a Self check at a rank equal to the tens digit of the Lady’s avatar skill.  Further, inflicting physical harm on the Lady causes a Violence check, again at a rank equal to the tens digit of the Lady’s avatar skill.  Again, the channel functions only on men; women and sociopaths are immune.

71-90%:  The Lady possesses a magnetic attraction.  Men unconsciously seek to protect, serve, and impress the Lady and receive a positive shift when doing so equal to the sum of the Lady’s avatar skill (so serving a Lady with an avatar skill of 74% would give a +11% shift, and a skill of 89 a +17% shift).  This shift applies only to skill checks made in the pursuit of impressing or protecting the Lady, and only in her company.  Taking a bullet for her certainly qualifies; shooting someone she dislikes counts only if your primary motivation for the attack is to please her.  Women receive no such bonus.

91+%:  The Lady manipulates men's minds.  Over the course of a conversation lasting no less than half an hour, the Lady can (with a successful Avatar: the Lady check) divine the schema of a man's Madness meter and toy with it as it suits her, moving hardened and failed notches from one meter to another.  The only restriction is that she cannot change the total number of hardened notches, or failed notches, on the whole Meter.  So a Lady could turn your five failed Unnatural notches into one failed notch of each scale, but not erase them completely or turn them into hardened notches.  As usual, women are immune to the Lady’s wiles.