URNOVISo I got Break Today…
All in all a *fine* sourcebook. Nice GMCs, nice details about the Maks, nice extracrunchy bits.
But… and I warn you all now this is going to be a rant… Herpemancy.
Poor. Very poor.
Just so we all know where we’re coming from, I’ll just say that I agree pretty much 100% with Mattias’ “so you want to write a school” (see the “misc.” section). A School of magick should be (a) postmodern as UA defines it and (b) relevant to most people.
But lets begin at the beginning. With the thing at the heart of any UA school: The Central Paradox. Pedants have pointed out that UA “paradoxes” are no more paradoxes than rain on your wedding day is irony, but they do have a distinct flavour, you create by destroying, win freedom through surrender, you have everything and do nothing with it, and so on. What about Herpemancy? Apparently “the complex paradox of herpemancy arises from poisons that cure, the strength that comes from yielding”. Now, I don’t know about you, but if you say to me “poisons that cure the
strength that comes from yielding” the *last* thing I think of is snakes. (Actually that isn’t true, the last thing I think of is Evana Trump in a white bikini, but snakes are pretty low on the list).
Further, nothing in the school is actually *about* poisons which cure, or the strength that comes from yielding. They get charges by handling snakes, buying new snakes and getting bitten by snakes (okay, the getting bitten half works, but it’s just the second way of getting a significant charge). And what can they do with this power? They can “display qualities attributed to snakes in a number of mythologies”. In other words, if somebody once thought a snake could do it, then they can do it. And this covers everything from Apep to Jorgmungandr to the Devil. Of course the fact that snakes have symbolised more or less everything if you look hard enough is also held up as an example of the “central paradox”.
Herpemancy manages to break both of Mattias’ (unofficial but very sensible) rules *simultaneously*. It’s not postmodern. It’s UA rules for snake charmers – almost as if somebody was trying to port the Followers of Set into Unknown Armies (they were a bad idea in vampire, they’re a bad idea in anything else…) – this is about as postmodern as Eliphas Levi. Not only is it not postmodern, it’s totally bloody obscure. I live in a city, and I have seen how, in the right light at the right time it can seem like a living, sentient being. I have seen people who have pierced themselves and indeed cut themselves as an expression of their own individuality. I have seen the powerful effects of alcohol for good and ill. I have watched TV and thought how strange it is that a million people are doing exactly the same thing as me at the same time. I have thought, time and again, of what I could do if I only had the money.
But I have **never** so much as *seen* a snake outside of a zoo.
URNOVI… continued
And finally, Herpemancy is *far* **too** ***powerful***. Because Herpemancers can do anything a snake could do in mythology, they can do pretty much anything. They can affect the body on a par with Epideromancy, and the mind on a par with Cliomancy. Their Taboo (never be nasty to snakes) is trivially easy to keep.
And they’re immortal.
Sorry, didn’t I mention… their top level spell (that is to say, the one that costs 4 significant charges) makes the subject 10 years younger. Compare this to the Thanatomantic spell of similar purpose, which costs one significant charge and makes you one year younger. The Herpemantic spell (a) gives you ten times as much life back (b) heals all your other wounds and injuries as well. Sure it costs 4 charges as opposed to 1, but lets not forget that to get 4 Herpemantic charges you need to buy four snakes. To get one Thanatomantic charge you need to ritually sacrifice a human being.
Fans of PoMoMa may recall the precise line “this is why this school is so tempting, you can live forever at the cost of one murder a year”. Read that line and the amoral bastard in all of us starts weighing up whether or not it would be worth it. It’s cool, it’s seductive, it’s dangerous. Frankly “you can live forever, and all you have to do is buy a snake every two and a half years” doesn’t compare.
One of the glories of UA is that its magicians are scary on two levels. They’re scary because they can kill you with a glance, and they’rescary because the *reason* that they can kill you with a glance is because they regularly gamble their own lives for shits, giggles and mystical power. Being scary because you own a bunch of reptiles doesn’t compare.
Quite frankly if I’d found Herpemancy on this site I’d have assumed it was written by a well intentionned fanboy who thought that snakes were kewel and didn’t entirely get UA. Seeing it in an otherwise fine sourcebook is terribly disappointing.
JaculiI have to agree w/ most of waht you said. What was also disappointing to me is the fact that Geomancy is also “overpowered.” I remenber getting done reading mac attack and thinking, wow, evreyone (at least my players) is going to want to be a herp or a geomancer. At least geomancers get into turf wars w/ cliomancers and urbanmancers. How do I reign in the snakes?
To not just criticise, I would also want to point out that I also went wow after reading about anagram gemetria, thinking that it would be a fun adept to play….
Neville Yale CrontenI think some of the ideas behind the herpemancer are all right, more or less. They ARE mighty damn powerful, particularly the “ten years younger” schtick.
But then, I thought, hey, house rules, right?
Sure, you’re ten years younger… everything healed… except, y’know… the poisons that heal don’t always heal themselves?
Who wants to be 24 and have extreme palsies because of all the neurological damage all that venom has done? All shaky and insane. People CAN become immune to venoms and such, which would yield an easy way to get charges, but the body still suffers. People get immune to alcohol, too… it still ruins them, it just takes more to make them FEEL it.
Neville Yale CrontenThe Geomancers aren’t that overpowered, most of their spells are pretty indirect, beaurocracy based, non-lethal, and/or just tricky. And it takes a bit more effort to charge up, not more time, just more effort.
Besides, can you imagine how HOT it would be if a Geomancer and an Urbanomancer hooked up? Sensuality city-sized. And altering the city…
Neville Yale CrontenThat is ridiculous, I admit, but it starts to get harder and harder to get new types of snakes.
On the other hand, yeah, pretty bogus. I would have written up the powers differently, if nothing else.
I might let a Herpemancer in as a GMC, but not a PC. The STD jokes would just wear thin.
URNOVINot really, snakes will live, what a couple of decades, and theremust be hundreds of diferent types (remember it’s “do not currently own” not “have never owned) so odds are you can keep a constant throughput of snakes fairly trivially.
Of course even worse, you could buy a snake of a given type, getthe charge, and then give it away to a good home (it would have to be a *good* home, or you’d break taboo),bingo,a sig a week at no risk.
Or for full on farce value,two herpemancers can sell one snake back and forth between the twoof them,gaining a charge each time it changes hands….
The more I think about Herpemancy, the more I don’t like it
ShawnI haven’t read the book yet, but I’m assuming taboo for the herpemancers is “cannot give up a snake to anything other than a good home, and can’t harm a snake.” Ok, fine. Couldn’t you buy the snakes, get the charges, use them up and become ten years younger… then kill the snakes? Sure, it’s cruel, and it’s sick, and it doesn’t seem like something that someone who worshiped a snake would do. But heck, that just means you’ve got to be insane somehow – we always hurt the ones we love, after all.
As I said, I haven’t read the book yet, so I might be in left field here.
URNOVIThe Taboo is just “can’t harm a snake,speak badly of snakes, andyou generally have to takeevery opportunity to tell people how totally l33t and k3we1 snakes are.
Yup, you can just cull them afteryou’ve blown all your charges, but I tend to assume that most Adepts really don’t like breaking Taboo, even if they’re “empty”. Ifyou habitually do or avoid doing something for any reason,you’lloften carry on doing or not doing it after the reason goes away.
Neville Yale CrontenAnd besides, that’s taking it a bit rules-lawyersy. If I GMed it, it would be a snake you either don’t currently own or hadn’t owned for a long, long time, perhaps every before. GMs, we gotta interpret these things as something less than 10 Commandments, remember.
ShawnOh, I agree, it’s very rules-lawyersy. And if I was GMing it, you wouldn’t get that option either. But _any_ rules problem can be fixed by GM fiat. The goal is to avoid needing to do it in the first place.
I guess I’m finding that UA has done such a good job of avoiding such things overall, when I find a spot where you need a GM to wave thier hands and say “I don’t care what the rules say, it doesn’t work like that” it seems rather jarring. Regardless, I’ll have to reserve further comment until I get the book – I’m due for my quarterly trip to the game store soon, so that will be on my list.
Neville Yale CrontenNo kidding. You gotta learn to stand up to your group. It’s more than a game, so its more than just numbers and loopholes. Let’em whine. There are still plenty of LEGITIMATE loopholes out there to exploit, ones that are fun, exciting, dangerous, AND interesting, often once-in-a-lifetime and full of dire consequences.
MenzoaGod damn it, I have to agree with all of that. The “get 10 years younger” thing is just too far off. At the very least, I’d say that it’s the appearance of youth. Sure, they might look younger, but it doesn’t really turn back the clock.
I have to say that I’m strongly in the “not in my games” camp. The internal cost-benefit balance seems to be a bit off, and the taboo should be a bit more restrictive, considering the powers.
SonnlichI know this is an old discussion, but:
Just on the question of snake turnover, even if you had to go for new snakes you hadn’t owned in a long, long time, there really are a vast number of snake species around. You could get by for centuries of immortality using Australian snakes alone, and only then would you have to move on to African snakes…
Since UA is very US-centric, possibly whoever wrote up herpomancy was thinking in terms of snakes in America, which aren’t that many or varied, I gather. An Australian thinks of snakes differently; one almost never sees them in buildings or gardens, but take a walk in the bush or in an area of sparse population, and there will be snakes.
An Australian herpomancer could be *very* powerful, but I agree that it’s not exactly very postmodern; it would have a naturistic feel.
Then again, maybe that’s what Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, is really up to. If he’s getting his power from a mixture of dangerous animals, fame, and general exposure, he’s racking up an awful lot of power.
I wonder what he’s going to do with it?
F.A.R.I know this is an old thread, but . . . have you EVER tried taking care of a snake? And if you’ve never seen one outside of a zoo, I’m sorry, that’s your loss.
Snakes are stupid, but very good at escaping cages. If they get out, you have to catch them pronto or they curl around the radiator and fry up. Bam. No more charges. And giving them away? My dad worked at the live animal center of a museum for years, and he was the snake guy; any snakes were loose or abandoned, he’d take them until he could find a new home for them. You know what he found out? There ARE no new homes for snakes. Everyone who loves snakes has as many as they can feed, and everyone else hates them. It sounds to me like Herpemancy was written by someone who knows snakes through and through, but didn’t have enough imagination / was too involved to tighten the school’s abilities. Still, it seems that a wide range of powers could be appropriate for a school in which each significant charge is a years-long committment – just look at videomancy!
That said, the charge system does not appear unbalanced. A person whose obsession is snake care will not be getting more charges than any other adept; he’ll probably be getting far fewer, especially when you consider that most of his money is paying for rats and the heating bill. And travel? Forget it. You can’t trust anyone to house-sit snakes. Think about *consequences*, people! You don’t just buy a snake and stack it on the shelf!
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