[UA] Re:New School: the Neomancer

[George Guy]

On the Blast: I figured it would be appropriate for the school to have a
blast that causes pointless conflict and competition. Most blasts don't fit
directly into their schools' domains, because most schools don't have
"hurting people in general" in their domains. Thus, blasts tend to hurt
people in ways that vaguely reflect their schools' general styles or
imagery, but don't necessarily fit their schools' domains. This doesn't
cause concept creep because it's understood that blasts are a special case.
Hence why, for instance, Dipsomancers don't have more spells for
telekinesis.

Also, the discount for repeated castings was mainly intended to allow the
blast to be cast on multiple people in rapid succession.

On the other hand, raising the cost and allowing the victim to resist does
seem like a good idea, and I've done so.

On Face Lift: I thought this would fit Neomancy's domain because it made
people newer or older, which is something that Neomancy is very much about.
Making people seem more or less respectable would cause concept creep,
because that would be giving them a practical advantage, rather than
superficially "outdating" or "updating" them.

The Neomancer

AKA Joneses, Brats.

It's all about the Next Big Thing. Ever since you were a kid and your mom
gave you that brand new Super Nintendo for Christmas and the kid next door
threw his NES out the window because he didn't get one, you've remembered
that pull. It's the power of envy, the unstoppable beast of progress. It's
not about the products. There was a time when you cared whether you'd ever
actually go off-road in your new Hummer 3, but you've grown out of that.
It's about the thrill of always being the first one on your block. It's
about the knowledge that you will never become trapped in the tar pits of
contentment. It's your right, your destiny. It's the American Dream.

Irony: Progress without Purpose.

Blast Style: Neomancy hits like Plutomancy, only in reverse. Piss off a
Jones, and whoever is standing closest to you starts hurting you in whatever
way he or she can. In group situations, this can become especially ugly,
devolving into an all-out brawl as confused people try to defend themselves
and each other.

Stats

Generate Minor Charge: Acquire a product that was released in the last six
months. The product can be bought or received as a gift, as long as it
wasn't bought second-hand or at a discount (see below). For these purposes,
the product must have some sort of perceptible, here-to-for unseen practical
innovation or significant aesthetic difference.

Generate Significant Charge: Acquire a product that was bought on or before
the day when it was released, within one month of its release. Once again,
such a product must be a new model, not a new installment or issue. Don't
try to cheat with newspapers.

Generate Major Charge: Be the very first person to buy a highly-anticipated
new product.

Taboo: Buy or otherwise acquire something that was released more than a year
ago, or was bought second-hand or at a discount. The innovation that
occurred within the last year can be completely superficial or cosmetic; if
you really need a new hairbrush, just find a hairbrush whose handle is
shaped slightly differently than those of the hairbrushes made by the same
company last year, and you're fine. Additionally, Neomancers lose all
charges if they enter any store or go to any website that sells things
primarily second-hand or at a discount. A Neomancer also may never own a
business, or invent something new.

Random Magick Domain: Neomancers are masters of greed, envy, innovation,
competition and obsolescence. They can make brothers kill each other over a
paperclip, or turn your desert eagle into a flintlock pistol that you don't
even know how to use. They can make the tide of a fight turn simply because
one side is better dressed.

Starting Charges: Newly-created Neomancers start with 3 minor charges.

Charging Tips: For obvious reasons, Neomancers need a lot of disposable
income. Alternately, many instead have patrons of some kind who fulfill
their needs, whether parents or organizations that require their services
(Alex Abel has more Joneses on his payroll than adepts of any other school).
Partly for this reason, they're perhaps better than other adepts at
appearing sane and normal. Their madness, although taken to an extreme, is
of a variety quite common among mundanes, and this allows them to blend in
perhaps even better than Plutomancers.

Minor Formula Spells

Paper Trail (1 minor charge)
For the next hour, the Neomancer can see the entire history of any object in
terms of who's owned it, who's bought it, who's sold it, and who made it, as
well as its current market value.

Got a Receipt? (2 minor charges)
Touch an object the size of a large mini van or smaller. Choose a person
(this person may be you). From now on, all magickal, forensic, or
bureaucratic investigation determines that the object you chose belongs to
the person you chose. Note that this spell does not alter anyone's memories,
only physical and magickal evidence, electronic records, and paper trails.
When a disagreement resulting from this spell winds up in court, the
conflict between evidence and witnesses can get bizarre indeed.

Face Lift (2+ minor charges)
A person under the effects of this spell appears to be up to ten years older
or younger for about a week. This does not change the target's physical or
mental capabilities; the effects are purely cosmetic. Multiple castings on
the same individual are cumulative, but Face Lift cannot raise or lower
someone past the age of six.

Shopping Spree (2+ minor charges)

Cast this spell on someone as they enter a store (a mall, whether indoor or
outdoor, counts as one "store" for these purposes). For each two charges
spent, that individual will buy at least one hundred dollars worth of
merchandise, whether or not she can afford it. This spell ends when either
the store closes or the individual can no longer access any money without
begging, stealing, or leaving the store.

Big New Thing!/Old News! (3 minor charges)

Cast this spell when someone (including yourself) states an opinion or tries
to convince someone to do something. You may flip-flop that person's Soul
roll, for better or for worse.

The Last Power Ranger (3 minor charges)

Cast this spell when someone is about to buy or trade for a product.
Everyone who can see or hear the transaction now wants that product more
than anything, and will go out of their way to haggle for it or take it by
force for a number of minutes equal to the sum of the roll. People affected
by this spell want the specific object that was being bought, and will not
settle for an identical copy or even a superior version. In order to resist
this spell, a person must pass a rank-7 Helplessness check.

Divide and Conquer (4 minor charges)

This is Neomancy's minor blast. Whoever is nearest to the target (other than
the caster) hurts the him as much as he can with his bare hands for one
combat round. This has a great tendency to escalate and cause general chaos
as bewildered comrades try to help each other, and often causes a fair
number of Self and Isolation checks on the victims. Anyone that this spell
forces to attack someone must succeed on a rank-10 Helplessness check: the
victim is fighting the urge to assert himself over a perceived adversary.
Damage cannot be increased normally, but additional castings within a minute
of the first only cost 2 minor charge each, no matter who the targets are.

Significant Formula Spells

Planned Obsolescence (1 significant charge)

This spell reduces a piece of technology or fashion to a roughly equivalent
stage of development up to ten years earlier for each charge spent. It can
only change equipment into something that is at least conceptually similar
and made by the same company. With enough charges, it can turn an IBM
computer into an IBM typewriter, but it can't turn a Macintosh a typewriter
because Apple never made typewriters. The effects last for one day. This
spell cannot affect anything larger than a mini van.

Spending Binge (2+ significant charges)

This spell works like Shopping Spree, only this time the victim can't leave
the store until she spends $1,000 for each two charges spent. This is, of
course, murder on Plutomancers.

Survival of the Meanest (2 significant charges)

This is Neomancy's significant blast. It works like the minor version, only
this time people will attack the victim with weapons, or do more creative
things like shoving him into traffic. As with Divide and Conquer, people
forced to attack can resist with rank-10 Helplessness checks. Once again,
damage can't be increased normally, but repeated castings within one minute
of the first come at half price.

But Mine is Shinier! (2 significant charges)

Cast this spell whenever you lose a contested roll. As long as you are using
equipment that is newer, better-looking, or more expensive than your
opponent's gear, you may retroactively flip-flop your roll, your opponent's
roll, or both.

My Precious (4 significant charges)

Choose a person. Choose an object that that person has either on him or in
something he owns (such as a car, bag or residence), whether or not he owns
it. For the 24 hours, the targeted person will not part with that object for
anything, and will do anything in his power to keep it in his possession or
retrieve it if it is taken. In order to break this spell, the victim may
make a single rank-10 Helplessness check. Whenever the victim must use
force, or do something that causes a stress check, he may make a rank-6
Helplessness check to break the spell. If keeping the object would threaten
the victim's life, the victim may make snap out of it with a rank-2
Helplessness check.

Hell Magnet (4 significant charges)

This spell summons a demon. However, unlike other summoning spells, it does
not summon it into the mind of the caster, but the mind of someone the
caster doesn't like. The if the victim has an Avatar or Adept skill, or a
more general expertise in demonology or the occult, she may attempt to
control or resist the demon as if using a spell like Cage for the Dead,
although she uses that skill instead of her Soul stat. If she lacks such a
skill, she may do the same with her Soul stat, at a -30% penalty.

Die With the Most Toys (5 significant charges)

When a Jones casts this spell, she cannot be harmed by any weapon that isn't
as new as the weapon with which she is armed. For ten minutes, attacks by
people with older weapons simply glance off the Neomancer's skin or miss
miraculously. Hand-to-hand attacks are not affected by this spell.

Major Formula Spells

Make everyone in the world desire a certain product enough to spend
everything they have on it, or make a nation completely forget about a
certain technology.

What You Hear: the Neomancer

There's this really posh planned community in Nevada, "Frugal Hills" or
something, all rich executives, mostly marketing types, you get the idea.
The kids there are really spoiled: all the latest toys, video games, cars
and clothes for the teens. You know people like that, don't you? Thing is, I
visited some friends there last week after I hadn't gone near the place for
ten years, and I swear to god, it was all the same kids I knew when I went
there ten years back. Haven't aged a day. And the parents, they've got it
all: good jobs, good marriages, good money, but when you go inside one of
their houses, you notice they don't spend it on anything: old clothes, old
cars, no decorations, leaky roofs—just the most expensive plastic crap in
the world for their kids. Those parents look like the saddest people on
Earth. I got out of there fast, man.

On 5/12/07, Susan Dohnim <bibadoo at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I like this -- for a school that's all about greed and envy, there are a
> low number of spells about greed and envy. You've got the "force you to buy
> something" spells, and that's about it. Something that focuses in on the
> ugly side of competition, envy on the one side, shame/embarrassment about
> others being ahead of you on the other, are called for I think.
>
> With regard to Face Lift, I think that something like it is appropriate to
> the school with a little tweaking -- if it makes the target either seem
> a lot less worthy of respect (target appears as a poor homeless sap) or a
> lot more worthy of respect (target appears as a master of business);
> depending on how it's written, either effect could have either negative or
> positive ramifications, or both (you'll never get a table at a restaurant
> with the former, but you might be ignored doing things you wouldn't normally
> be ignored for; with the latter, you'll never be ignored, but it might make
> it easier to bluff your way into places you shouldn't be allowed).
>
> Whether this spell would actually change physical appearance, or just how
> people treat the target, I dunno. Obviously, this kind of intrudes on
> personamancy, but I think in a perfectly appropriate way.
>
> >An option is, that the blast gets the attention of the nearest
> _unsouled_ human within 33.3 miles (minor), 333 miles (significant), that
> develops an irrational need to have this persons life (See: Single White
> Female, Prince of Darkness (for the homeless), et al). It's a long slow boil
> for a blast, making it.. well, not a blast, but more fitting. "That person
> has what I want, I must have it." It would require more thought to design
> the spell, but this way, you aren't poking peoples souls without resistance,
> and has all the disadvantages associated with trying to deal with an
> unsouled being. "Hey Mister Cop, this guy is chasing me, he wants to kill
> me? What guy?"  The base effect might last 24 hours, with each additional
> charge adding another length of time to the unsouled's obsession. A
> catastrophic (or BOHICA) on this magick gets you your own soulless
> doppleganger for the same length of time trying to steal your life.
>
> The school is wrapped up in greed and envy, and the soulless want what you
> have, making them good patsies for Joneses (like Demons for Dipsomancers,
> and Carnals for Libidomancy).
>
>
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