The path of those who have to suffer the blame of others…
Attributes:
Leviticus 16:22 :
And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
The Scapegoat is the one who must suffer, the one made to bear the blame for others. He is a negative figure and very few do follow his way willingly. The fact is, most of his current Avatars on Earth are unaware of following his Path – not that they got the choice anyway. Sadly enough, they are pretty numerous across the world.
The forces he has to face are always too strong for him to fight: he is close to the Victim, except the fact that he will always try to refuse the burden given to him. He is similar to the Martyr, except the fact that he is not willingly accepting the burden for others. He is the Scapegoat, the one they blame – but he will not let them knock him down. He will resist, till the End.
The Scapegoat tries to refuse the burden of the blame placed on him, but typically he will always accept it at the very end, stoically or with resignedness – even if the dim light of Hope should still be there. Paradoxically, if the Scapegoat succeeds in removing the blame from him, he will be no more a Scapegoat.
He is not to be saved, and he knows it. His end is always a fateful one.
Taboos: The Scapegoat must never accept the burden of the blame placed on him. Paradoxically, if he succeeds in removing the blame from him, he will quit the Path of the Scapegoat – which may lead to some kind of very masochistic attitude from Avatars who follow his way consciously.
In any case, the Scapegoat must be innocent from the blame put on him.
If the Scapegoat ever accepts the burden of the blame and bears it with courage and abnegation, then he will switch his path with the one of the Martyr and is no more a Scapegoat. Such a thing happens kind of often, the path of the Martyr being a way more positive one. Many think that the Martyr and Scapegoat Ascended figures could have been the same entity: Jesus.
Symbols: The figure of the Scapegoat itself. Clothes and signs associated with his Scapegoat status (anything, from the yellow star for the Jews to the prisoner’s clothes for an innocent).
Masks: Jesus (Christian). The Martyrs. The Jew. Any Archetype from any minority anywhere that can be considered as socially oppressed: the Gypsy, the Afro-American, the Hispanic, the Gay, the Lesbian, etc.
Suspected Avatars in History: too many to be counted. The Jews through History. Jesus before he became a Martyr. The victims of the many witch-hunts, from Salem to McCarthyism. The victims of pogroms through European History. Innocents sent to jail. Oppressed minorities everywhere, from Afro-American to gay people and so on. The Scapegoat may be one of the few archetypes that got the most avatars through human History.
Channels:
1%-50%: The Scapegoat is a tough one – he will endure, but he will never give up. His mind is never easy to subdue: a successful Avatar roll will give him a 20% shift to any stress roll. Just proceed with the Avatar roll before the stress check.
51%-70%: The Scapegoat’s resistance becomes physical. His toughness and resilience increases: he is not an easy one to kill. The first time the Scapegoat is physically molested for the blame he is supposed to carry, he may make an Avatar roll: if successful, the result will add to his wound points (don’t forget that the GM is the one who takes note of it). When this wound points are all spent, the Scapegoat may make a new roll at the start of the next physical molestation. He may not make a second roll during the same day though.
71%-90%: The Scapegoat’s will is even more strengthened by the terrible injustice put on him. He is allowed to flip flop all failed stress check if the result is below his Avatar’s skill. His will and soul are his last walls against what he has to suffer.
91%+: The Scapegoat’s will to live is the strongest. When killed, a successful Avatar roll will allow him to survive with one last wound point. He will crawl, gnash, moan, but he will not die. Not yet. If he dies from a ritual execution however, then this channel will be useless. Common examples of ritual death are public executions (from the stake to hanging and electrical chair), all it must have is a symbolical meaning, including Death delivered by an Avatar of the Executioner. Being shot in the crowd doesn’t count however.
This sounds an awful lot like the Outsider: he’s the one ostracized from society for who he is. His avatar channels make him difficult to attack. He is represented by oppressed minorities. I think there needs to be something in the writeup to differentiate the two archetypes.
Yep, it is very close to the Outsider, but an important point separates them : the Scapegoat becomes what he is because others imposed that to him, not just because he is somewhat different.
So it is not necessary to be “different” to become a Scapegoat, which also means an Outsider, when ostracized, can also becomes a Scapegoat (complicated, not really ? 🙂
Besides, the point about the oppressed minorities may well be the source of this confusion : people issued from oppressed minorities may embody the Scapegoat not because of their “differences” from the norm, but because the “normal people” (if such a concept exists) needed to blame something for their own errors, or are looking for a (pretty irrationnal) cause for their problems : for example, in period of economical crisis, minorities often become the target of violence – because of the need to have a “scapegoat”, someone to blame. In the same way, “Witches” were burnt because people feared them and believed them for being the cause of their problems (bad crops, lost cattle, etc).
That is what the Scapegoat is, and makes him pretty different from the Outsider.
But I agree that I may have produced very similar channel powers, and I will gladly accept any better ideas :->