[UA] Some Thoughts on Fan-Made Adepts and Avatars

[Ted Prodromou]

Thanks George!

Mattias also has an excellent set of suggestions about
fanmade schools:

http://www.unknown-armies.com/content_comments.php?id=729_0_3_0_C

Personally, I think that decent people don't spend
their time writing fan schools.  Unless they're Jade
Hammons.

--- George Guy <meebler at gmail.com> wrote:

> Reading through the adept school and archetype
> submissions on UA.com, I've
> come up with a few general critiques.  Take them for
> what you will.
> 
> ~On Avatars~
> 
> *Taboos are Central.*  An archetype's taboo is its
> only defining trait.  All
> you have to do to channel an archetype is observe
> its taboo.  All the
> symbols and masks help, but they're ultimately
> window-dressing.  Make sure
> that your archetype's taboo isn't too broad, and
> that someone antithetical
> to your conception of the archetype couldn't follow
> it.  On the other hand,
> don't make it too specific; unexpected thematic
> variations are always cool,
> especially if they lead to ascension wars.
> 
> *Having your Cake and Eating it Too Should be Hard.*
>  Adept/avatar hybrids
> are rare for a reason.  Keep it that way.  If your
> archetype closely
> resembles an adept school, put a divider between
> them.  Make your
> archetype's taboo difficult or impossible to observe
> at the same time as the
> school's, or make one's abilities violate the
> other's taboo.  A good example
> of the latter is the Entropomancer/Fool combo, which
> is virtually impossible
> because the Fool's second channel violates
> Entropomancy's taboo.
> 
> ~On Adepts~
> 
> *No One Expects the Adept Inquisition.*  Adept
> schools should not revolve
> around things that people expect magicians to do
> without turning those
> things on their heads.  This is partially stylistic;
> Unknown Armies makes a
> point of being as different from other occult horror
> games as possible,
> sometimes to an excessive degree.  However, I think
> it also has a thematic
> element; adepts break rules.  Their magick wouldn't
> work if they didn't.  If
> an adept is too much in line with the public
> consensus on what he should be,
> he loses the hole in the cosmos that gives him power
> over reality.
> 
> *Keep it Postmodern.*  I think I've finally come up
> with a clear definition
> of what Stolze and Tynes call "postmodern magick". 
> *Postmodern magick* *relies
> on personalized, egocentric philosophies.*  All of
> the old schools have
> selfish principals, but they don't admit it and try
> to apply those
> principals universally.  Cryptomancy is dying
> because it relies on objective
> truth.  If your magick is based on lies, you need an
> absolute truth to
> twist.  Personamancy is in many ways similar to
> Cryptomancy, but it relies
> on a fluid or absent personal truth rather than a
> universal truth.
> Mechanomancy used to be about observing and applying
> an all-encompassing
> order to the world.  However, mechanomancy received
> a second wind by
> petulantly clinging to the past, replacing
> world-changing idealism with
> individual hubris.  There's not much info on old
> school alchemists, but I'll
> bet they were better at making drugs and medicines
> that could effect other
> people than Narcoalchemists are.  I'd also guess
> that when Plutomancers
> started out, they were more into obsessing over
> social Darwinist rhetoric
> instead of their current raw, honest egotism. 
> Selfless adepts don't seem to
> have a place in the postmodern age, no matter how
> twisted they are.
> 
> 
> All IMHO, YMMV, etc.
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