The Ramblin boy, a Masterless Man replacement influenced by the Godlike Tom Paxton.

I have wandered through this land just a-doin’ the best I can,
Tryin’ to find what I was meant to do.
And the people that I see look as worried as can be
And it looks like they are wonderin’ too.
-Tom Paxton, “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”

The Wanderer

Stories of Mysterious wanderers are found in nearly every culture. The Greeks had a myth wherein Zeus wandered from town to town disguised as a poor traveler, and would reward those who treated him well and punish those who treated him poorly. Christianity and Judaism both feature ascetic, bearded prophets wandering the Desert, preaching miracles. Poor Hindu “saints” may be found in many towns, sitting under banyan trees and dispensing blessings.
In the 1930s, the depression returned this Archtype to popular culture. Many young men, ashamed at being unable to support themselves or simply depressed, became hobos, riding the rail cars from town to town in search of work. This archtype returned in the 60s and 70s, as intelligent and promising youth, drug addled, shell-shocked, or simply troubled, dropped out and traveled the country. Although perhaps not as noble or influential as the early Christians, they did preach Peace and Love.
The Wanderer, then, is a man who wanders the world, poor but peaceful. Unlike a more typical beggar, the Wanderer is poor not by necisitty but by choice. Although society may fear the Wanderer, he is inherently harmless – at least, harmless to just men. Most Avatars are wise and good – or at least, they see themselves as such. Some call the Wanderer the “Prophet in the Park” or “the Ramblin’ Boy”, after the song by Tom Paxton.
Although this Archtype seems very ancient, its Avatars have only recently been observed in the Occult Underground. The speculation is that the Wanderer was usurped by the Masterless Man, who was then in turn overthrown by another Wanderer. The Antique Wanderer had only male Avatars, its not yet known whether the new Archtype encompasses women.

Symbols: Well worn clothing, old Vans, a beggar’s cup, religous wisdom (or “wisdom”). In the devoloped world, signs and handbills. Stories are particularlly important to this archtype, music by Tom Paxton, novels by Steinbeck and Kerouac, some sutras and certain passages of the Bible are all symbolic of the Wanderer.

Taboos: Although the Wanderer is not necessarily poor, he’s not rich either: a Wanderer may have only as much wealth as he needs for his basic necessities, and no more. Of course, the Wanderer must wander, in order to experience a great deal of common life and encounter new things. (if you can do this on a few city blocks, or at an internet terminal, more power to you. But beyond a certain point, you have to actually get out on the road and Wander.)
Apart from that, the Wanderer has to be mostly harmless. The archtype does not welcome those who besmirch its name by hurting or taking advantage of others.

Masks: Buddha, John the Baptist, various Buddhist, Daoist, and Hindu figures whose names I can’t remember.

Suspected Avatars: Some people claim Jesus, the Buddha, and Lao Tzu were all Avatars. A lot of people think those people are heretical bastards who need to be killed.

Channels
1-50%: Wandering around poor and aimless tends to involve a lot of sleeping on sidewalks and not eating enough food. This is the kind of thing that tends to give most of us the flu or asthma in a hurry, but the Wanderer is untroubled. When a Rambler has to deal with some unglorious health hazard – not enough sleep, cold weather, disease, he may make an Avatar check to simply ignore it.
51-70%: The Wanderer of old would frequently dispense blessings, omens, curses, and so forth. The new Wanderer is a little more benign: he may only dispense blessings. The exact effects of these blessings are up to the GM to determine, but a few standard effects might include:
-Healing 3 hp, or fixing some broken object.
-A small shift or reroll
-Some Hallmark card type concidence that lifts someone’s faith in life.
If the player is requesting particularly strong blessings, you might try giving them to him but having them backfire occasionally.
71-90%: The Wanderer is harmless, and at this level, everyone knows it. People have an overwhelming sense that he’s benign, and will treat him as such. Security guards might let him take a tour of the Musuem at night, paranoid Mothers would have no probling letting this smelly stranger babysit. Note that “benign” is not the same thing as “reliable” “competant” or “special.”
Attacking the Wanderer probably provokes a Violence or Self check 3 notches higher than normal, since you’re attacking someone you know to be harmless.
91%+: The Wanderer is an enternal feature of the landscape, like the roads and rivers. If he dies for any reason, he comes back sometime within the next week. This isn’t anything as obvious as literally rising from the dead. He just shows up somewhere in the world, rambling around lord knows where. To the Wanderer, this transition seems normal. He remembers having died, but has no memory of where he went in the meantime, or exactly where he appeared.

Notes and Ideas: This was dreamed up as part of my continuing “All the Archtypes die!” idea. The idea is, some Masterless Man kicks the current archtype out and ascends as the Wanderer. It was supposed to go something like this:

-A particularly sensitive fellow becomes troubled and starts wandering the US. He’s an amateur shrink, and he helps a lot of people who would never set foot in a shrink’s office but like the idea of taking advice from a handsome stranger who knows the Bible. (I guess he went to a good College and knows a lot, because I don’t really see him as particularly religous.)
He slowly picks up some gun skills and takes to wearing a cowboy hat, although he’s certainly not a warrior. Eventually he hits 95% or so, the Godwalker considers him a threat and shows up to Challenge him. He has no idea what the guy is talking about (or maybe just doesn’t want anything to do with it.) Eventually he gets frustrated and fights the guy, or maybe gets him arrested (in a symbolic defanging of the archtype.) From there, he somehow overthrows the Archtype and ascends (havn’t worked out how….probably involves the PC’s if you’re playing through this at all.) He rewrites the Archtype as the wanderer. Ta da.

This is sort of a rough sketch, I’m not sure I like how it worked out. I especially want to make the “blessings” thing more specific, although I think it needs to stay there in order to fit with images of Hindu poor saints, Christ, et cetera. I’m also not sure about game balance – the Channels are strong, but he’s got a lot of Taboos. I think I need to condense the Taboos to one idea at the heart of the archtype.

The Avatar was inspired largely by the Tom Paxton song “I can’t help but wonder where I’m bound.” I’d be particularly interested in trying to capture the feeling of that song more in the representation here.