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

[Unknown VariableX]

Seems like there's a built in defense against too many adept/avatar hybrids: 
Not that many of them know about the other at all. Plus, those that do know 
about the other approach might not understand it. A Cliomancer might know 
somebody who can use some avatar channels, but will usually only be able to 
recognize those powers in terms of her own; the avatar has harvested power 
from some culturally significant source, or something. Similarly, the avatar 
is going to think that the Cliomancer has loaded unnecessary rituals into 
tapping the Scholar, or something to that effect.

Since you can't learn two magick schools without going completely loopy, and 
you can't channel two archetypes at the same time (well, there's one 
Cryptomancy spell that does something like that, but it's normally 
impossible), both adepts and avatars are going to consider the practices 
mutually exclusive -- unless they're out-and-out damn-the-consequences power 
hungry, they won't even look into it.

This limits even the potential starting number of avatar/adepts to those 
with an open mind and a wide enough perspective. That's pretty rare in the 
Occult Underground. Rather than spend time studying avatar behaviors and 
symbols, most adepts would just look into getting a major charge somehow.

I'm guessing that it's the disturbed avatars that get into adept magick, and 
the minor adepts that stumble onto avatar powers; significant adepts are 
usually putting a huge amount of effort into their magick, while the minor 
adepts are trying to balance magick and mundane life -- they have more 
downtime and less of an investment in their adept powers (even though, to 
any "normal" person, that investment is damn big). Beyond that, it's as 
Chris said, that only total conflict of taboos would make the thing 
impractical: A Peacemaker Thanatomancer, for example, would be out of the 
question, but a Videomancer Scholar doesn't have anything that kills the 
idea right off the bat, and some combinations work very well together: The 
best examples are Vernon Henshaw, the Bibliomancer-Hunter, and the Freak, an 
Epideromancer-Mystic Hermaphrodite.

Of course, some avatars work better with some schools, even if there's no 
intrinsic conflict. Epideromancy and Entropomancy both lend themselves more 
or less to the Masterless Man and Flying Woman -- in both cases there's an 
emphasis on self-reliance and, two a certain extent, conflict and 
confrontation. More sedate avatars, like the Confessor, would probably work 
better with less blatant schools.

Finally, there's one question that any potential avatar-adept is going to 
have to confront; which aspect gets priority? The adept approach or the 
avatar approach? Which powers are used to suppliment the other? For the 
Freak and Gerlinde Unger, the Mystic Hermaphrodite gets preference; the 
Freak uses its powers over the flesh to change back and forth between male 
and female at will, reinforcing its avatar status and holding onto the 
Godwalker position for dear life. Gerlinde, on the other hand, only pays lip 
service to her Eastern Cryptomancy.

So, if you're making a fleshworker/Masterless Man, what is your ultimate 
goal? To become tougher and stronger in and out of combat? That means that 
Avatar powers bolster the adept powers. But if you want the ability to heal 
yourself and be independent of doctors and nurses and hospitals, that's 
leaning more towards the philosophy of independence and self-reliance the 
avatar is all about, isn't it? I mean, either one should work, but it's an 
important element for no other reason than to make the powers fit with the 
character's goals and personality. And mechanics-wise, the powers that have 
priority should have a higher skill level than the other, partly because 
that particular skill was learned later than the primary power. If you 
learned the behaviors of the Pilgrim to help grab that Cliomantic Major 
Charge, then your Cliomancy skill is probably higher. But if your Pilgrimage 
goal was to learn all you could about the family history of the Zambonis, 
and you learned Cliomancy to help dig for skeletons in their mystic closets, 
then your avatar skill will be higher.

...wow. That's a lot of typing. My hands hurt.

-Variable (Personamancer-Two Faced Man)


***
"What is this? Did the quadratic formula explode?"
-Strong Bad
***




----Original Message Follows----
From: Chad Eagleton <ceagleto at yahoo.com>
Reply-To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>
To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>
Subject: Re: [UA] Some Thoughts on Fan-Made Adepts and Avatars
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 10:58:45 -0700 (PDT)


 > > *Having your Cake and Eating it Too Should be
 > Hard.*
 > >  Adept/avatar hybrids
 > > are rare for a reason.
 >
 > I disagree. If there is no immediate taboo clash
 > your
 > combo should be fine. If you want a entropomancer
 > and
 > fool combo, you only blow your entropomancer taboo,
 > if
 > you use the fool channel.


And isn't that supposed to lead to utter "crazier than
a shit house rat looniness" if you serve two masters?
And to me, if the adept/avatar thing weren't
rare...well, that just smacks too much of White Wolf
Changeling kinfolk vampires...



 > I thought Cryptomancer is dying because it is too
 > good
 > at what it does, swamped by its own successful
 > obscurity. Or perhaps this is a lie. But the reason
 > it
 > survived for so long is that they adapted their
 > school
 > all through the ages, keeping it fresh, dumping the
 > stale concepts.


Well, and Cryptomancy had two different sects with
different ideas who were at war with each other. Also,
the closet homosexuality was a binding force, and a
drawing force for new recruits. And keeping your
sexual orientation a secret isn't such a big deal
anymore.


--Chad


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