Everything you know is normal.
This has probably been suggested before, but I figure I can submit my version.
The Everyday Man is an archetype anyone will recognise. He works a 9-5 job, takes home a decent paycheck to support his wife and 2.4 children. And he doesn’t believe in magick. Maybe he has his little superstitions, but that’s as far as it goes. If you had to describe this guy in one word, that word would be “normal”.
Symbols
Whatever is popular in his part of the world. Nothing extreme, just the things that everybody has. A family car, or a casual shirt may be good symbols.
Taboo
Do or see something that doesn’t happen in the Real World.
If the Everyday Man ever gains a notch on one of his madness meters, he is probably also breaking his taboo. Hardened or failed doesn’t matter, what counts is that something still intruded into his normal life, took him beyond the bounds of what is normal for the majority of the world. No average joe would get shot at, and he’d never even believe in magic.
Also, gaining or improving any occult based skill, or learning about the occult underground would distance a person from this archetype.
Avatar Channels
Hopefully I remembered the percentages right this time, I don’t have the books with me at the moment.
Channel the first (1-50%?): A normal guy rationalizes. Deja vu could be just coincidence, a rain of fish caused by a freak whirlwind. The guy attacking you, well, that happens all the time on the news. The everyman can make a roll against his avatar skill to ignore a single event which would normally cause him to take an Unnatural or Violence check.
-10% shift for every rank the check would be, -50% if you initiated it. (Seeing someone attacked by magic, you could explain it away as a trick of the light. When you use magic, its a lot harder to believe the world is normal)
Channel the second (51-70%?): The man in the street. The everyday man mirrors the moods of the collective unconscious. With a successful avatar roll, he can mentally stereotype someone, recognise the archetype that person best embodies. This requires a half-hour talking or listening to the person. Note that it doesn’t necessarily tell you the
Channel the third (71-90%?): Face in the crowd. The Everyday Man is disguised by his averageness. When he doesn’t want to be noticed, he can use his Avatar skill as Conceal. In a busy or crowded area, this channel is always active, although the avatar himself will not be aware of it.
Channel the fourth (91%+): I don’t know… anyone else got any suggestions?
The Godwalker Channel (99%): The current godwalker, Janette Smith, is a secretary at a popular law firm. Her powerful disbelief in the supernatural is a barrier, suppressing magic across a large area. No obvious magickal effects will operate within a mile of her presence, and any adept with whom she makes eye contact suddenly finds themself out of charges.
Huh. Interesting. The only problem is… doesn’t Ascension to the Invisible Clergy inherently break taboo? So how could there be an archetype for this avatar to reflect? Or am I missing something?
Yeah, that’s a good point. But I always thought the Clergy were more like primal forces, rather than personalities. So when the first avatar ascended, they would become nothing more than an immutable source for pure normalcy. Nothing could refute that… unless the nature of normal in the collective unconscious changes.
I’m not making much sense here, but I know what I mean. Not sure if its right or not, but it works for me.
Another random thought… what would a descended ex-archetype of the Everyday Man be like? I imagine he’d turn out something like the Freak. Hey, maybe he is…
Erm… The second channel trails off mid sentence. What’s it supposed to say?
“…doesn’t necessarily tell you if the person is an avatar – you wouldn’t understand that even if it did. You just know ‘what kind of person’ they are.”
It’s sort of like the opposite of the Holy Prole out of the back of To Go, rejecting the extraordinary instead of accepting it.
I love this one. There could be a whole story of Janette the Godwalker and a whole bunch of groups looking to get her to Ascend (the Sleepers, who want a magic nullifying archetype in the Clergy) by keeping her day to day life as normal as possible (they kill any adepts in the area, hire a voice actor to play her boyfriend dumping her over the phone when dirt digging reveals he’s heavily into BDSM and urine play etc).
There’s also people who DON’T want her to ascend and try to slip non-mainstream stuff into her life (Discordian pranks at the office, Trans pride parades right in town, flyers for tattoos and piercings in her mailbox every day, she goes for a walk in the park and one of the PCs has to flash her etc)
Part of the Taboo doesn’t really work. An Avatar doesn’t have to think along the lines of the Archetype, he just has to act like he does. So seeing wierd stuff should be fine for The Everyday Man, but acting on what he sees should break Taboo.